Word: influenzas
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...this mortal contest, it's the job of Daniels and his fellow virologists to decode the opponent's playbook. Working in a grim, 1930s building in London's northern suburbs (its exterior was used to portray an insane asylum in the blockbuster Batman Begins), scientists at the World Influenza Centre receive virus samples from around the world and use sophisticated machinery to map their genetic structures. During normal years, the scientists concoct the recipe that the World Health Organization (WHO) uses for seasonal-flu vaccines. But in a pandemic year, they become sentinels looking for any changes in the virus...
...April 25, Rod Daniels, the deputy director of the World Influenza Centre in London, was at a meeting in Germany when he received a call from a co-worker: an influenza outbreak had been reported in Mexico and the first samples of the virus were on their way to London for examination. A virologist who has studied flu for more than 30 years, Daniels knew exactly what he was looking for. Influenza A viruses - the type that can cause pandemics - use a protein called hemagglutinin to bind to the cells of their animal hosts. When a virus jumps from animals...
...influenza virus has only eight genes--far fewer than the estimated 25,000 that human beings possess--but its simplicity hasn't stopped it from wreaking havoc on humanity for centuries. Even today, with vaccines and antivirals, normal seasonal influenza kills some 36,000 Americans each year. And every once in a while, it gets much worse. When new flu viruses arise and begin spreading easily, they can trigger global pandemics. Sometimes they're relatively mild, like the pandemics of 1957 and '68. But sometimes they can be as catastrophic as the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed as many...
...Health Organization has officially stopped counting. In nations where it is already winter, like Argentina, H1N1/09 has caused billions of dollars in damage, and China is quarantining foreigners suspected to have the flu. In the U.S., the virus has continued to multiply in the summer--a worrisome sign, since influenza usually takes a vacation when the weather improves...
...that autumn. U.S. health officials said on July 29 that they hope to have 120 million doses of a new H1N1/09 vaccine ready by October, but the virus could change by then, or the vaccine might prove less than effective. Virologists like to say the only thing predictable about influenza is its unpredictability. As the world waits for the next onslaught, that bears remembering...