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Influenza Virus Antigenic Variation, Host Antibody Production And New Approach To Control Epidemics, Jiezhong Chen, Yi-Mo Deng

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Influenza is an infectious disease and can lead to life-threatening complications like pneumonia. The disease is caused by three types of RNA viruses called influenza types A, B and C, each consisting of eight negative single-stranded RNA-segments encoding 11 proteins. Current annual vaccines contain two type A strains and one type B strain and are capable of inducing strong antibody responses to both the surface glycoprotein hemagglutinin (HA) and the neuraminidase (NA). While these vaccines are protective against vaccine viruses they are not effective against newly emerging viruses that contain antigenic variations known as antigenic drift and shift. In nature, …