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Non-specific immune response -H5 |
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Posted: January 28 2006 at 10:26am |
Evololutionary Biology
“The model does not aim to predict the emergence of new strains of influenza, but it does suggest that a short-lived general immunity to the virus might affect the virus's evolution.” “We therefore inferred that there must be some other form of interaction between strains happening in the population,” he said. “The best fit to genetic data was obtained when a secondary, non-specific immune response was included in the model, on top of the normal adaptive immune response which recognizes individual virus strains. This secondary response gives a person complete protection against nearly all variants of the influenza virus, but only for a short period of time.” This kind of protection, said Ferguson, would last only for perhaps weeks after infection, after which it would fade, rendering a person vulnerable to reinfection with a different viral strain. " "Virologists had previously postulated that temporary, non-specific immunity might exist “but it hasn't been thought of up until now as being a very significant driver, either of influenza evolution or of epidemiology. However, this work indicates that non-specific responses probably have a critical effect on both influenza transmission and evolution,” said Ferguson." "Led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute international research scholar Neil M. Ferguson at Imperial College London — published an article outlining their model in the March 27, 2003, issue of the journal Nature. Co-authors are Alison Galvani from the University of California,at Berkeley, and Robin Bush from the University of California, Irvine." http://www.hhmi.org/news/ferguson2.html |
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