We think it is a significant breakthrough and that it is particularly exciting that we are finding this factor a hundred years after the 1918 pandemic.
- Aartjan te Velthuis
The findings appeared this week in Nature Microbiology.
Influenza is one of the main infectious diseases in humans. Seasonal influenza viruses account for about 650,000 deaths per year, whereas pandemic strains such as the 1918 H1N1 pandemic virus have been linked to 50-100 million deaths worldwide. Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses such as the H5N1 and H7N9 strains have a mortality rate of about 50% in humans.
The reasons for difference in disease severity and lethality caused by seasonal influenza viruses on the one hand, and pandemic and highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses on the other hand is still poorly understood. Previous research has indicated that in infections with the 1918 pandemic virus or infections with an H5N1 avian virus, a powerful immune response is established that leads to death.
This led Dr Aartjan te Velthuis of the University of Cambridge and his colleagues Prof Ervin Fodor, Dr Josh Long and Dr David Bauer of the University of Oxford, to ask what viral molecule can trigger this powerful immune response.
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge