LIVERPOOL researchers have been awarded £2m to study a devastating brain infection which can develop from the same virus which causes cold sores.

The UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) have given the Liverpool Brain Infections Group cash to look into encephalitis – an inflammation in the brain most often caused by the herpes virus.

The Liverpool Group – based at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Liverpool and Royal Liverpool University Hospital – has been studying viral encephalitis for the past 10 years.

Previously, most of the group’s work has been on viruses that cause major outbreaks overseas, but with this grant the group will start looking at viruses in the UK.

For this project, the Liverpool Group has pulled together leading researchers from across the UK to work with the Health Protection Agency and the Encephalitis Society.

Professor Tom Solomon, head of the Brain Infections Group, said: “Patients with encephalitis can be difficult to identify, because to begin with the virus just causes subtle changes, such as mild behavioural problems.

“However, if doctors don’t recognise it, and act quickly, patients can rapidly deteriorate and may even die.”