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CIDRAP (Center For Infectious Disease Research & Policy) News is carrying an excellent article on a study done on seasonal patterns of influenza reassortment.
Reassortment is the exchanging of genetic segments between influenza viruses, and is believed to be one of the ways that the H5N1 virus could acquire pandemic capability. By swapping genetic material with a human influenza virus, H5N1 could become more easily transmissible.
Two other possible routes are antigenic shift and recombination.
Researchers warn H5N1 reassortment can occur beyond winter months
Jul 25, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – World health experts have been working under a general assumption that a feared reassortment between human and avian influenza viruses—a scenario that could spark a pandemic—might only occur during a short winter interval, but researchers who recently examined virus circulation patterns warn that time frames for coinfection are wider and sometimes unpredictable.
Researchers Andrew W. Park, from the Institute of Research for Development in Montpellier, France, and Kathryn Glass, from the Australian National University in Canberra, report their findings in the August issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Though much is known about human influenza patterns in temperate zones such as the United States and Australia, little is known about the seasonality of influenza A infections in tropical and subtropical areas in Asia, where the H5N1 virus is more common, the authors write. Reviewing the timing of influenza A infections, as well as of H5N1 poultry outbreaks and human infections, could reveal useful information for epidemiologists and pandemic planners, they add.
A well written and informative article, well worth reading the whole thing.
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