Related papers: Influenza Evolution and H3N2 Vaccine Effectiveness…
We predict vaccine efficacy with a measure of antigenic distance between influenza A(H3N2) and candidate vaccine viruses based on amino acid substitutions in the dominant epitopes. In 2016-2017, our model predicts 19% efficacy compared to…
Influenza has been circulating in the human population and has caused three pandemics in the last century (1918 H1N1, 1957 H2N2, 1968 H3N2). The 2009 A(H1N1) was classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the fourth pandemic.…
Influenza is a contagious respiratory illness that causes significant human morbidity and mortality, affecting 5-15% of the population in a typical epidemic season. Human influenza epidemics are caused by types A and B, with roughly 25% of…
The rapid outbreak of bird flu challenges the outcome of effective vaccine for the upcoming years. The recent research established different norms to eliminate flu pandemics. This can be made possible with skilled experimental analyses and…
H1N1 influenza causes substantial seasonal illness and was the subtype of the 2009 influenza pandemic. Precise measures of antigenic distance between the vaccine and circulating virus strains help researchers design influenza vaccines with…
We introduce a new measure of antigenic distance between influenza A vaccine and circulating strains. The measure correlates well with efficacies of the H3N2 influenza A component of the annual vaccine between 1971 and 2004, as do results…
Until now, design of the annual influenza vaccine has relied on phylogenetic or whole-sequence comparisons of the viral coat proteins hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, with vaccine effectiveness assumed to correlate monotonically to the…
Most antigenically novel and evolutionarily successful strains of seasonal influenza A (H3N2) originate in East, South, and Southeast Asia. To understand this pattern, we simulated the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of influenza in a…
Minimizing time delays in manufacturing vaccines appropriate to rapidly mutating viruses is the key step for improving vaccine effectiveness. The vaccine for the H3N2 flu type has failed for the last two years (~ 15% effective). Here we…
Infectious diseases are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality around the world; thus, forecasting their impact is crucial for planning an effective response strategy. According to the Centers for Disease Control and…
The unfolding of pandemic influenza A(H1N1) for Fall 2009 in the Northern Hemisphere is still uncertain. Plans for vaccination campaigns and vaccine trials are underway, with the first batches expected to be available early October. Several…
Influenza remains a significant burden on health systems. Effective responses rely on the timely understanding of the magnitude and the evolution of an outbreak. For monitoring purposes, data on severe cases of influenza in England are…
Background: Influenza A/H3N2 has been circulating in humans since 1968, causing considerable morbidity and mortality. Although H3N2 incidence is highly seasonal, how such seasonality contributes to global phylogeographic migration dynamics…
The seasonal human influenza virus undergoes rapid evolution, leading to significant changes in circulating viral strains from year to year. These changes are typically driven by adaptive mutations, particularly in the antigenic epitopes,…
The Influenza type A virus can be considered as one of the most severe viruses that can infect multiple species with often fatal consequences to the hosts. The Haemagglutinin (HA) gene of the virus has the potential to be a target for…
More virulent strains of influenza virus subtypes H1N1 appeared widely in 2007 and H3N2 in 2011, and especially 2013-4, when the effectiveness of the H3N2 vaccine decreased nearly to zero. The amino acid differences of neuraminidase from…
Determining phenotype from genetic data is a fundamental challenge. Influenza A viruses undergo rapid antigenic drift and identification of emerging antigenic variants is critical to the vaccine selection process. Using former seasonal…
On 11 June the World Health Organization officially raised the phase of pandemic alert (with regard to the new H1N1 influenza strain) to level 6. We use a global structured metapopulation model integrating mobility and transportation data…
Influenza viruses mutate rapidly and can pose a threat to public health, especially to those in vulnerable groups. Throughout history, influenza A viruses have caused pandemics between different species. It is important to identify the…
Given a sample of genome sequences from an asexual population, can one predict its evolutionary future? Here we demonstrate that the branching patterns of reconstructed genealogical trees contains information about the relative fitness of…