News

• Timeline: Swine flu

  

  A chronology of the H1N1 outbreak.

• Flu-virus prevalence comes under scrutiny

  

  Projects to monitor antibodies seek true extent of H1N1 infection.

  ( 24 November 2009 )

• A healthy vision

  

  Tom Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks exclusively to Nature.

  ( 22 October 2009 )

• More News

Dealing with Pandemics

• Swine flu: One killer virus, three key questions

  

  Nature reports from three laboratories scrutinizing the pandemic flu virus.

  ( 11 November 2009 )

• How to win trust over flu

  

  Mass-vaccination campaigns for the pandemic H1N1 virus must take public concerns into account.

  ( 8 October 2009 )

• Lessons learned

  

  Additional work is needed to prepare for the next pandemic viral outbreak.

  ( 2009 )

• More on Pandemics

History: Bird flu and the 1918 flu

• Past pandemics timeline

  

  Key scientific and political milestones from around the world, charting the first appearance of H5N1 avian flu in Hong Kong in 1997 to its global spread today, and links to archives.

  ( 2007 )

• FAQ: Avian Flu

  

  Is there going to be a pandemic? History suggests that this question is a matter of when, rather than if. Flu pandemics occur every 30-70 years, as newly evolved flu viruses sweep across entire world regions infecting enormous numbers of people.

  ( 2007 )

• Pigs test positive for bird flu

  

  Unconfirmed report suggests fatal strain of virus has managed to infect swine.

  ( 23 August 2004 )

• More History

Research

• In vitro and in vivo characterization of new swine-origin H1N1 influenza viruses

  

  Most human infections with swine-origin H1N1 influenza viruses (S-OIVs) seem to be mild; however, a substantial number of hospitalized individuals do not have underlying health issues, attesting to the pathogenic potential of S-OIVs. To achieve a better assessment of the risk posed by the new virus, we characterized one of the first US S-OIV isolates,as well as several other S-OIV isolates, in vitro and in vivo.

  ( 13 July 2009 )

• Evolutionary analysis of the dynamics of viral infectious disease

  

  The rapid evolution of many important pathogens, particularly RNA viruses, means that their ecological and evolutionary dynamics occur on the same timescale. This Review discusses the insights into the transmission and epidemiology of viruses that have been provided by analyses of their evolutionary dynamics across a wide range of biological scales.

  ( 30 June 2009 )

• Emergence and pandemic potential of swine-origin H1N1 influenza virus

  

  Influenza viruses cause annual epidemics and occasional pandemics that have claimed the lives of millions. The emergence of new strains will continue to pose challenges to public health and the scientific communities.

  ( 14 June 2009 )

Elsewhere on Nature.com

• Nature Reviews Microbiology web collection

  

  More about influenza, previous pandemics, preventative measures and how the spread of disease can be modelled and possibly predicted with these selected Nature Reviews Microbiology and Nature Reviews Genetics articles.

• Newsblog

  

  Regular swine flu round-ups on the Nature News blog.

• Swine flu forum

  

  Discuss the outbreak in Nature Network.