Chapter 40 Group II Viruses Single-Stranded (+)Sense DNA

Berman, Jules J.

Group II, The single stranded DNA viruses, contains only one family of viruses that are pathogenic in humans: Class Parvoviridae. Class Parvoviridae contains environmentally resistant viruses that infect a wide range of animals. Parvoviruses are the smallest viruses currently known. Parvovirus B19 is the agent that causes fifth disease, so named because the diseases was the fifth type of common childhood exanthem among 6 rashes listed in most textbooks. Until the 1980s, no cause of this fifth listed exanthem was known; so it came to be known as “fifth disease”. Other names for fifth disease are erythema infectiosum and slapped face disease. Human herpesviruses 6 and 7 (Chapter 39) cause the sixth childhood rash, “sixth disease”. Keywords Hydrops fetalis, Fifth disease, Erythema infectiosum, Slapped face disease, Transient hemolytic anemia, Aplastic anemia