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Any clinical consequences of acute infections with RNA viruses like influenza (#46), measles, Japanese encephalitis (#99) and so forth generally start to resolve after the ‘effectors’ of adaptive immunity, the circulating antibodies (or immunoglobulins, Igs) and the immune T cells come into play to eliminate both the virus (#21, #22) and the virus-producing ‘factory’ cells (#33, #34). Using the traditional techniques of virology - like the isolation of infectious virions in tissue culture (#113) - the perception was that these pathogens have pretty much gone from our bodies by the time we are feeling better. But, with more recent technology based on, particularly, the detection of viral RNA, we now know that this can be too simple a view.