Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is one of the most widespread human viruses, with over 80% of the general population exposed by young adulthood, as determined by antibody studies. Initial infection usu ally occurs during childhood or the teenage years. It is clear that, de pending on the age of the recipient, clinical manifestations of the primary infection can vary. It has been known for 20 years that EBV is the etiologic agent of acute infectious mononucleosis (IM) and is also closely associated with African Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) and naso it is a pharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). There is increasing...

Since its discovery as the cause of infectious mononucleosis in 1964, the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has been etiologically implicated in an increasing number of human diseases. Generally considered the first human oncogenic virus because of a number of studies linking it with Burkitt's lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), as well as its documented oncogenicity in nonhuman primates, EBVhas served as a model for identifying subsequent candidate oncogenic viruses and the stimulus for Evans' revision of the Henle-Koch postulates to accommodate the problems in proving viral oncogenicity in...