The Eruptive Fevers at Sixes and Sevens

Abstract

Sixth Disease (roseola infantum) and its primary causative agent, HHV-6, share names that numerically concur. This article examines and answers the question of whether that correspondence is by design or coincidental by briefly reviewing the history and nomenclature of the HHV viruses and the classic febrile rashes of childhood while highlighting some clinical and microbiologic features of HHV-6 infection.

Keywords:

• HHV-6
• HHV-7
• human herpesviruses
• roseola infantum
• sixth disease
• Kawasaki disease
• viral taxonomy
• nomenclature
• emergency medicine
• historical coincidence

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Victor Ovchinnikov, Yoshitatsu Sei, Raymond T. Chung, and the Open Access Emergency Medicine reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript and Robert C. Gallo for his assistance. He thanks Harvard Medical School, Martin Karplus and the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard and the Boston VA Medical Center for support of this work.

Disclosure

The author reports no conflicts of interest in this work.