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The new Nature report also assessed the immune
response of different groups to the new virus. The most
intriguing finding, according to Kawaoka, is that those
people exposed to the 1918 virus, all of whom are now in
advanced old age, have antibodies that neutralize the
H1N1 virus. "The people who have high antibody titers
are the people born before 1918," he notes.
The above comments are in association with an
upcoming publication in Nature demonstrating that
patients born prior to 1918 still have antibodies that not
only neutralize the 1918 pandemic virus, but also cross
react with the 2009 pandemic swine H1N1. Similarly, the
2009 pandemic strain replicates more efficiently in the
lungs of experiment mice and ferrets, which may explain
the frequent deaths of previously healthy young adults.
The targeting of this age group also parallels data from
1918.
These data further support the observation that the 90%
of the polymorphisms in sequences of all 8 gene
segments from the 1918 pandemic strain can be found in
a human H1N1 isolate, WSN/33 or a swine H1N1
isolate, A/swine/Iowa/15/1930. These data support a
scenario that mimics the data for 2009, which involves a
swine H1N1 moving into a human population and
spreading efficiently.
Data worldwide identify previously healthy young adults
dying from the pandemic H1N1 infection. However, as
the swine H1N1 spreads throughout the human
population, opportunities for adaption to human host
arise via acquisition of human polymorphisms.
Interestingly, many of the new acquisitions of can be
found in early H1H1 isolates, raising additional concerns
that the 2009 pandemic H1N1 is following a path similar
to the evolutionary path of 1918.
A recent isolate from Japan, A/Sapporo/1/2009 has a
genetic HA backbone matching the recent oseltamilvir
resistant isolate A/Hong Kong/1269/2009, but has
acquired a new polymorphism found in WSN/33 as well
as an additional polymorphism found in
swine/Iowa/15/1930, further supporting evolution along
the 1918 pathway.
Thus, the growing list of similarities between 2009
pandemic H1N1 and 1918 pandemic H1N1 continues to
cause concern.
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