Related papers: Early Recognition of Emerging Flu Strain Clusters
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.…
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…
Influenza A is a serious disease that causes significant morbidity and mortality, and vaccines against the seasonal influenza disease are of variable effectiveness. In this paper, we discuss use of the $p_{\rm epitope}$ method to predict…
We define a new parameter to quantify the antigenic distance between two H3N2 influenza strains: we use this parameter to measure antigenic distance between circulating H3N2 strains and the closest vaccine component of the influenza…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
Influenza viruses undergo continual antigenic evolution allowing mutant viruses to evade host immunity acquired to previous virus strains. Antigenic phenotype is often assessed through pairwise measurement of cross-reactivity between…
The evolution of the hemagglutinin amino acids sequences of Influenza A virus is studied by a method based on an informational metrics, originally introduced by Rohlin for partitions in abstract probability spaces. This metrics does not…
Despite having triggered devastating pandemics in the past, our ability to quantitatively assess the emergence potential of individual strains of animal influenza viruses remains limited. This study introduces Emergenet, a tool to infer a…
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…
Viral mutations pose significant threats to public health by increasing infectivity, strengthening vaccine resistance, and altering disease severity. To track these evolving patterns, agencies like the CDC annually evaluate thousands of…
A persistent public health challenge is finding immunization schemes that are effective in combating highly mutable pathogens such as HIV and influenza viruses. To address this, we analyze a simplified model of affinity maturation, the…
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…
RNA virus populations will undergo processes of mutation and selection resulting in a mixed population of viral particles. High throughput sequencing of a viral population subsequently contains a mixed signal of the underlying clones. We…