The issues regarding potential contiguousness of stealth virus infections need to be addressed using both epidemiological and laboratory methods. Potential sources of infections include family members, work environment, blood products and live viral vaccines. Without denouncing the value of vaccines in disease prevention, one can question the wisdom of exposing stealth virus infected children to live viral vaccines that may accentuate their illness. Similarly, one should consider a preexisting stealth virus infection before subjecting an individual to potentially neurotoxic therapy, as used for example to treat head lice.

Several stealth virus isolates can be passed to animals, and the role of human to animal transmission needs to be defined. An animal was protected from live virus challenge by prior inoculation of a heated preparation of virus infected cells. Similar observations have been made in mice. The prospects for a stealth virus vaccine are in line with the retention of antigens recognizable by antibodies and the ability of circulating antibodies to act as a barrier to virus entry into the brain. Ongoing sequencing studies have suggested several options for the production of recombinant DNA derived proteins that could serve as possible antigens, at least against the stealth virus on which the sequencing data are available.