Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Keynote Essay 1: Defining Who We Are: DNA in Forensics, Genealogy and Human Origins
- Section 1 Principles Of Cellular And Molecular Biology
- SECTION 2 MOLECULAR PATHOLOGY
- Chapter 8 Genomes and the Environment: An Overview of Molecular Pathology
- Chapter 9 Genetics, Genomics, Health and Disease: General Considerations
- Chapter 10 Chromosome Disorders
- Chapter 11 Mendelian Inheritance
- Chapter 12 Unusual Molecular Processes that Impact on Disease
- Chapter 13 Population Genetics
- Chapter 14 Complex Multifactorial Inheritance
- Chapter 15 Molecular Basis for Phenotypic Variation
- Chapter 16 Medical Genetics
- Keynote Essay 3: Human Cloning: Should We Go There?
- Chapter 17 Neoplasia: General Considerations
- Chapter 18 Oncogenes
- Chapter 19 Mammalian DNA Repair
- Chapter 20 Tumour Suppressor Genes and Inherited Susceptibility to Cancer
- Chapter 21 Carcinoma
- Chapter 22 Leukaemias and Lymphomas
- Chapter 23 Molecular Approaches to the Diagnosis, Prognostication and Monitoring of Cancer
- Keynote Essay 4: Microbes, Molecules, Maladies and Man
- Chapter 24 Molecular Basis of Infectious Diseases: General Considerations
- Chapter 25 Immunology
- Chapter 26 Human Immunodeficiency Virus
- Chapter 27 Tuberculosis
- Chapter 28 Malaria
- Chapter 29 Influenza
- Chapter 30 Oncogenic Viruses
- Chapter 31 Vaccines and Immunisation
- Keynote Essay 5: Drugs and the 21st Century
- SECTION 3 MOLECULAR THERAPEUTICS
- SECTION 4 RESEARCH AND THE CONTINUING EVOLUTION OF MOLECULAR MEDICINE
- Glossary
- Contributors’ Biographies
- Source Material And Recommended Reading
- Permissions And Credits
- Index
Chapter 29 - Influenza
from SECTION 2 - MOLECULAR PATHOLOGY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Keynote Essay 1: Defining Who We Are: DNA in Forensics, Genealogy and Human Origins
- Section 1 Principles Of Cellular And Molecular Biology
- SECTION 2 MOLECULAR PATHOLOGY
- Chapter 8 Genomes and the Environment: An Overview of Molecular Pathology
- Chapter 9 Genetics, Genomics, Health and Disease: General Considerations
- Chapter 10 Chromosome Disorders
- Chapter 11 Mendelian Inheritance
- Chapter 12 Unusual Molecular Processes that Impact on Disease
- Chapter 13 Population Genetics
- Chapter 14 Complex Multifactorial Inheritance
- Chapter 15 Molecular Basis for Phenotypic Variation
- Chapter 16 Medical Genetics
- Keynote Essay 3: Human Cloning: Should We Go There?
- Chapter 17 Neoplasia: General Considerations
- Chapter 18 Oncogenes
- Chapter 19 Mammalian DNA Repair
- Chapter 20 Tumour Suppressor Genes and Inherited Susceptibility to Cancer
- Chapter 21 Carcinoma
- Chapter 22 Leukaemias and Lymphomas
- Chapter 23 Molecular Approaches to the Diagnosis, Prognostication and Monitoring of Cancer
- Keynote Essay 4: Microbes, Molecules, Maladies and Man
- Chapter 24 Molecular Basis of Infectious Diseases: General Considerations
- Chapter 25 Immunology
- Chapter 26 Human Immunodeficiency Virus
- Chapter 27 Tuberculosis
- Chapter 28 Malaria
- Chapter 29 Influenza
- Chapter 30 Oncogenic Viruses
- Chapter 31 Vaccines and Immunisation
- Keynote Essay 5: Drugs and the 21st Century
- SECTION 3 MOLECULAR THERAPEUTICS
- SECTION 4 RESEARCH AND THE CONTINUING EVOLUTION OF MOLECULAR MEDICINE
- Glossary
- Contributors’ Biographies
- Source Material And Recommended Reading
- Permissions And Credits
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Influenza virus is one of the most enigmatic of human viruses. The virus was one of the first human viruses to be isolated – in 1933, by Andrewes, Laidlaw and Smith. The vaccine, developed in the early 1940s, is one of the first human vaccines. From earliest times influenza lent itself to be intensively studied. Human volunteer studies and detailed investigations of its pathogenesis and immunology were carried out as early as the 1950s. In addition, a variety of animals and avian species have been valuable models to study the virus-host interactions in great detail. Yet despite all of this, important gaps in our knowledge of this mysterious virus remain. A vast treasure trove of knowledge about influenza virus has accumulated over the decades, however, and has greatly enriched our understanding of virushost interactions, viral immunity, vaccine design and in particular molecular mechanisms of how viruses have so successfully evaded the body's immune responses. Influenza virus can, in fact, be described the paradigm illustrating the relationship between genetics, molecular structure, immunology and epidemiology.
Influenza virus is widely distributed among avian and mammalian species, with man being a relatively recent host. In humans, influenza is estimated to be directly responsible for over 250 000 deaths annually. Indirectly the burden of disease is far wider, as influenza often triggers complications such as cardiovascular disease, bacterial pneumonia and metabolic disease. Essentially a disease of the cold winter months (and in the tropics predominantly the rainy season) the virus regularly infects about 15–30% of the population annually over a period of 6–12 weeks. Some seasons are more severe than others, severity mainly being related to the more extensive antigenic changes in the haemagglutinin protein of the virus (see below). Every two to three times a century there is a major change in the virus, either due to viruses crossing the species barrier from birds to other mammals including humans or to genes coding for the haemagglutinin, and sometimes also due to the neuraminidase being imported into human viruses from an avian or mammalian source by a process called reassortment.
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- Information
- Molecular Medicine for Clinicians , pp. 350 - 358Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2008