[The persistence of pathogens and its immunepathological consequences]

In principle the persistence of pathogens is favored by disturbances of the interplay between specific humoral and cellular defence mechanisms in the particular individual characteristic. Clinical secondary reactions in persistence of infection are in many cases not characterized by the infection as such but more decisively by the "terrain" which a particular organism encounters. This terrain is characterized by immunopathological secondary reactions which now become in turn the basis of the clinical secondary disease. In the individual case the manifestations are due to: acquired disturbances of immunotolerance; formation of neoantigens or induced autoimmune reactions; frequent immune complex reactions due to infectious or secondary antigens with corresponding antibody formation and complement activation.