reports of a fatal case of Alaskapox were circulating in the news. A little-known virus with few cases to its name, Alaskapox virus triggers the eruption of 1 or more skin lesions on the body, among other symptoms. The virus is just 1 of many orthopoxviruses-some, like smallpox and mpox, with much higher disease burdens-whose modus operandi is the formation of skin lesions. But it's not just poxviruses that cause lesions. Other viruses, like measles and herpesviruses, spark everything from pimply papules to raging rashes. There is simply a remarkable number of ways in which viruses make skin weird. While these signs of infection are easy to see, why and how they develop is less obvious.
Why Do Viruses Cause Lesions?
are any area of the skin that is altered in some way; rashes consist of a widespread eruption of lesions on 1 or more areas of the body. Viruses can induce lesions by infecting and damaging skin cells. Skin symptoms of viral infection are also literal red flags that the host is responding to the virus. Whether lesions are part of the pathogenesis of the virus, or are simply signs that host's immune cells are hard at work (or both) depends on the virus itself.
Lesions Promote Viral Transmission
The development of virus-induced skin lesions is often tied to transmission. Skin is a primary way in which people interface with the world, and each other. Hanging out in-and bursting forth from-lesions is an excellent way for viruses to spread between hosts.
Sometimes the skin is the target organ for a virus. For example, mollusca contagiosum virus, a poxvirus that causes a highly contagious (but benign) skin infection, only infects keratinocytes
