Taking a Look at Influenza A Virus

The Great Influenza is a book not many enjoy. However, Dr. Petri enjoys this book for reasons that are lost to many. The book starts off on part one chapter 1 the Warriors. it starts off with imagery of September 12, 1876 talking about it crowd in an auditorium in Baltimore’s Academy of music. this was too launch John Hopkins University where they say they would change all of American education and in this first page you meet Thomas H. Huxley an English scientist who is the keynote speaker of this event. then give me George Armstrong Custer who “led the seventh Cavalry to with the stretching at the hands of him video savages resisting encroachment of the white man.” customer had spoke on the front page of the Washington star. then the book starts going deeper into detail

People are dying every second to a variety of reasons, some that could be prevented others where that is not the case. However, experts agree that influenza and influenza related deaths could be significantly prevented if people took the influenza vaccine annually. The influenza virus is a deadly virus that has been killing people since the 1900s; in 1918 the first recorded epidemic of a strain of influenza known as the Spanish flu killed approximately 50 million people ("Pandemic Flu History"). Because people did not know what the virus was or how to fight against it, it spread very fast. However, after the vaccine was made, later epidemics such as the 1957, 1968, and 2009 epidemics were not as fatal, killing approximately one million people worldwide. Vaccines played a large role in human history in fighting and preventing diseases from annihilating human beings. This paper will discuss the economic aspects of whether it should be mandatory for hospital health care workers to take the flu vaccine.

Describe two innate (nonspecific) immune responses that might prevent an influenza virus from causing any noticeable infection, even if the virus enters your respiratory passages.

Flu season is upon us and influenza has hit our area particularly hard this year. The flu is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses that infect the nose, throat, and lungs that spread from person to person through sneezing and coughing. The flu can also be spread surfaces when infected people touch surfaces such as door knobs, shopping carts, computer keyboards, countertops, etc. Symptoms of the flu include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Though it can be difficult to avoid the flu entirely, there are things you can do to protect yourself and your household from getting the flu by following these steps at home. Continue these steps daily throughout the flu season.

I think many can testify to being guilty of brushing off symptoms like a stuffy nose, and the feeling of fatigue as the common cold, treatable by over the counter drugs. We tend to ignore these minor signs of what could possibly be a very dangerous and severe viral infection, this respiratory infection being the influenza virus. Flu activity most often appears between the months of February and May, leading many to believe their symptoms might be caused by allergies. Although symptoms are very similar, the flu can cause epidemics with the deadly outcomes, as the common cold is just a nuisance for us.

Influenza strikes this country in pandemic proportions every year. Although there are many factors contributing to morbidity and mortality, the mortality rate varies from year to year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the thirty year range from 1976 to 2006, saw death rates from a low of 3000 to a high of 49000 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). So far this season, there have been 3697 deaths from influenza related illness (CDC, 2016). In 2009, the virulent H1N1 strain, with a 20% risk of death, also brought the difficulties of lack of research based clinical evidence for treatments (Cook, et al., 2010). The lack of research conducted during pandemics stems from the delay caused by the often

Influenza A is a highly contagious infection of the respiratory tract that affects all ages. The infection is highest among children and the frequency of serious illness and death is greatest among older adults, over 65 years old. Influenza often is a self-limited disease, subsiding without therapy. It comonly occurs in outbreaks, mainly in the winter months.

Every fall season, more than 1 billion Americans contract colds which lead to the overcrowding emergency rooms, doctor offices and urgent care visits. Most of them present similar symptoms of upper respiratory tract (URT) infections which affects the air passage in the nose, ears and throat. Among them, 5 to 20 percents of these symptoms are contracted by influenza, commonly called “the flu” (11). According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), flu diseases are episodic and can be acute which has claimed 3000 to 49000 lives from 1976 to 2006 although there have been no findings on a mortality report due to the common cold (11). Although the common cold and flu share a lot of common characteristics, but their complications

Each year, over 200,000 people are hospitalized due to flu related complications and thousands more are affected by it (Liao, Y et al., 2013). The flu is caused by the influenza virus which has a unique history and evolution pattern. This virus has been around for hundreds of years and has survived dozens of vaccines and different treatment methods. It has the ability to evolve and become resistant to vaccines using a variety of methods such as reassortment and antigenetic drift allowing it to still be a problem hundreds of years later.

Influenza is an acute condition that results in high fever, a dry cough and sore throat, body aches, headache, runny nose and malaise upon contracting the influenza virus (1). These symptoms often progress into more severe conditions and in certain populations; infection with influenza can lead to death. The influenza virus is an RNA virus that belongs to the family orthomyxoviridae. There are three types of influenza virus and they are classified as type A, type B and type C (2).

Influenza, commonly called "the flu," is an illness caused by RNA viruses that infect the respiratory tract of many animals, birds, and humans. Influenza viruses are found in body fluids such as saliva and mucous and commonly transmitted via tiny, air-born droplets created through sneezing and coughing. Depending on the conditions and temperature of the environment, the Influenza virus can remain infectious for up to one month. Transmission occurs as a new host comes into contact with viruses dispersed into the air or onto surfaces of objects. The main targets of the influenza virus are the columnar epithelial cells of the trachea, bronchi and bronchioles. HA binds to galactose-bound sialic acid on the surface of host cells. The HA binding

More people died from the flu than anything else. ´´Influenza viruses spread in tiny droplets caused by coughing and sneezing .´´ This is making it become a worldwide virus. However the people become infected with influenza by touching something that was contaminated with the virus influenza and touching their nose or mouth . Although most strains of influenza are harmless to wealthy individuals , the virus has the ability to mutate into harmful strains which may cause devastating epidemics .

The emergence and evolution of pandemic influenza has been greatly shaped by inter-host and inter-subtype

The flu (influenza) is a highly contagious virus that attacks the respiratory system. The flu has three strains, H1N1 strain, H3N2 strain and influenza B strain. The first known case according to UXL Encyclopedia of Diseases and Disorders “The first influenza pandemic that is known to have been global in scale took place in 1850; it started in China and spread across central Asia to Africa and then to Europe where it nearly wiped out the populations of several major cities in southern Italy and Spain”. The number of cases in the U.S. and worldwide is according to www.cdc.gov “There has been 11,965 laboratory-confirmed flu-related hospitalizations.” The number of cases in the US and world wide per year is 3-5 million.

IAV is a virus classified as part of the orthomyxoviridae and one of the causative agents of influenza or “the flu”. (Edinger, Pohl & Stertz, 2014) Its natural reservoir is primarily wild aquatic fowl where it is mostly nonpathogenic, though zoonotic infections can occur in mammals and domestic fowl. (Klenk, Matrosovich & Stech, 2008) The jump between species often results in the establishment of highly pathogenic variants that can have devastating effects, as was the case of the “Spanish” influenza pandemic of 1918. (Taubenberger, 2006) The infection across special barriers is dependent on changes to the structure of glycoproteins on the viral envelope, particularly haemagglutinin (HA). The different subtypes of HA and neuraminidase (NA) serve to classify different viral lineages. These changes in the structure can result in proteolytic activation; that when coupled to changes of receptor binding specificity allow for interspecies transmission. (Klenk, Matrosovich & Stech, 2008) The modifications can affect the pathogenicity of the virus even within the same species, which can allow for infection of new cell types, or even systemic disease. (Steinhauer, 1999) These mutations accumulate through successive replications or genetic re-assortment during confection. The resulting structural changes account for the observed antigenic drift that causes loss of immunity despite prior exposures to the virus. This evolutionary process drives the consistent