CD8 T cell responses are critical for protection not only against acute infection in mouse strains with inefficient NK cell responses (Lathbury et al., 1996; Krmpotic et al., 1999) but also for long-term control of viral replication in all mouse strains by preventing the selection of innate immunity escape mutants (French et al., 2004, 2005) and by contributing to prevent viral reactivation from latency (Polic et al., 1998; Simon et al., 2006). Here, CD8A is linked to infection.