Klenerman et al [6] suggested that if viral production increased with the duration of cell infection and the virus is highly cytopathic then CD8+ T cells may have little impact on the lifespan of the infected cell (as they kill infected cells shortly before they would die anyhow) but may have a large impact on viral load (as reducing the infected cell lifespan even by only a small amount prevents a large proportion of viral production). The gene discussed is CD8A; the disease is infection.