The Influenza 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

In the book, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, John Barry discusses the 1918 influenza pandemic. In the prologue, Paul Lewis, a physician who spent most of his time in the laboratory, was introduced. He had encountered the disease only once, but he had seen the devastating affects it had on the human body and this was enough impetus for him to try to end this virus. After the prologue, Barry shifts the topic to medicine in America (this was my favorite part of the book). Admission into medical school wasn’t based on academic scholarship or merit; instead, it was based on whether the applicant could pay the tuition. So William Henry Welch established the John Hopkins School of Medicine, a school that would

Once there was a virus named Birdie. This virus was a Bird Flu, or Avian Influenza, virus of the subtype H5N1, the first strain of Avian Influenza having the ability to infect humans (Normandin and Solan). Birdie looked like a microscopic pomander, a fragrant orange with cloves stuck in it. Inside, she had eight pieces of single stranded ribonucleic acid or ssRNA. Birdie was deadly to humans, but was not able to spread from one human to another. She could only spread from birds to humans ("Bird Flu"). Birdie started out inside a chicken named Cluck, where she was formed. A little while later, Cluck's farmer Mark, sold his Cluck, to Joe, another poultry farmer because Mark did not realize that Cluck had H5N1. After a few months of Cluck living

According to the CDC there was a breakout in “1918-19 Flu pandemic, which killed as many as 50 million people worldwide”causing the biggest breakout for Influenza (Reconstruction of 1918 Influenza Pandemic Virus). Influenza originated from Asia and the Middle East. Virtually all mammalian species have influenza. Influenza is a contagious respiratory illness caused by the Influenza virus. There are three types of Influenza: type A, type B, and type C. Influenza has numerous symptoms, vaccinations, and is unlikely to kill it’s host.

It is caused by various types of influenza viral strains. According to Marjorie, three types of influenza viruses are recognized: A, B and C. Type A is more common. Influenza virus belongs to the Orthomyxoviridae family, are enveloped, pleomorphic, and contain the genomes of 8 single-stranded negative-sense segments of RNA. Influenza viruses have three key structural proteins: hemagglutinin (HA), neuraminidase (NA) and Matrix 2 (M2). Both HA and NA are surface glycoproteins diverse enough that their serological recognition gives rise to the traditional classification into different subtypes.

The book The Great Influenza by John Barry takes us back to arguably one of the greatest medical disasters in human history, the book focuses on the influenza pandemic which took place in the year 1918. The world was at war in the First World War and with everyone preoccupied with happenings in Europe and winning the war, the influenza pandemic struck when the human race was least ready and most distracted by happenings all over the world. In total the influenza pandemic killed over a hundred million people on a global scale, clearly more than most of the deadliest diseases in modern times. John Barry leaves little to imagination in his book as he gives a vivid description of the influenza pandemic of 1918 and exactly how this pandemic affected the human race. The book clearly outlines the human activities that more or less handed the human race to the influenza on a silver platter. “There was a war on, a war we had to win” (Barry, p.337). An element of focus in the book is the political happenings back at the time not only in the United States of America but also all over the world and how politicians playing politics set the way for perhaps the greatest pandemic in human history to massacre millions of people. The book also takes an evaluator look at the available medical installations and technological proficiencies and how the influenza pandemic has affected medicine all over the world.

"The 1918 has gone: a year momentous as the termination of the most cruel war in the annals of the human race; a year which marked, the end at least for a time, of man's destruction of man; unfortunately a year in which developed a most fatal infectious disease causing the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of all--infectious disease (Billings, 2005)." The influenza in 1919 was much bigger than a cold. In the two years that this disease swept the world one fifth of the population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of death was unusual for influenza which usually killed the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all Americans. An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during this pandemic, about ten times as many as in World War 1. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them were killed by the influenza virus and not to the enemy. An estimated 43,000 soldiers who were sent for WWI died of influenza. The worldwide influenza epidemic adversely affected the U.S., both in the states and the soldiers at war. Subsequently, in the lack of medicine, lack of skilled doctors, and the lack of soldier preparation.

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.

First of all, the name “Influenza” is derived from the Latin word for “influence”, and it is an infectious disease that is caused by the RNA viruses from the Orthomyxoviridae family:

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

Influenza A virus (IAV) is thought to have emerged from aquatic birds and bats. It’s peculiar

In the human body, there are commensal bacteria serving as part of the normal flora. Various viruses can interact with these bacteria in order promote their infectivity. Poliovirus can bind with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) for stabilization to prevent premature RNA release and improve cell attachment to host cell through the poliovirus receptor. For retroviruses, specifically MMTV (mouse mammary tumor virus), binding to LPS improve their chances of successful transmission. MMTV-bound LPS get binds to toll-like receptor 4, which is a pattern recognition receptor of LPS. This event eventually leads to the induction of interleukin-10 (IL-10), which is an immune response inhibitory cytokine. By producing IL-10, it allows MMTV to go undetected by the

Influenza virus has caused serious respiratory illness and death over the past centuries. Epidemics and pandemics due to Influenza virus were known to cause morbidity and mortality in humans and other animals. Pandemics have been documented since the 16th century (WHO, 2005) and in the last 400 years, at least 31 pandemics have been recorded (Lazzari and Stohr, 2004). Influenza virus belongs to the family Orthomyxoviridae, which is characterized by a segmented, minus-stranded RNA genome. Influenza viruses are irregular, spherical (80-120 nm diameter) or filamentous structures and their surfaces are studded with rod-shaped hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) spikes (Betts, 1995). Influenza viruses are of three types A, B, and C. The typing

‘A time comes in the life of the most wretched when they do realize their mistakes and tries penance in their own way. Once I been attacked by influenza and having a high temperature, the animal instincts of my step father forced himself on me, right before my mother. I pleaded with my folded hands to let me be spared, I requested my mother to help me in relieving from the predator as my condition doesn’t permit to be his partner. My mother asked my step father to free me, when the words of my mother didn’t move him, she brought out a sword and to intimidate him flashed in the air, but the tip of the sword cuts off the veins of his neck and he fell down on me, killing him instantly, the blood oozing out profusely, drenched me fully. Horror

(Silverstein: 13) There are three types of influenza, depending on their activity: type A, which is usually the cause of outbreaks; type B, which is linked to sporadic cases, and type C, which rarely causes disease reactions. (Silverstein: 54) The virus which causes influenza enters the host through the respiratory tract, and binds itself to epithelial cells. The virus causes the cell to engulf it by endocytosis, and then fuses to the wall of the endocytic vesicle, injecting the contents of the virus into the cytosol of the cell. The RNA of the virus enter the nucleus of the cell, and spur the creation of new copies of the genes. These genes, as well as new viral proteins that are created in the cell, leave the cell as fresh viruses, budding off the plasma membrane of the cell.