Virologists have been predicting the onset of another round of seasonal influenza for months, but the predicted resurgence of A/H1N1/09 has failed to materialise, fuelling further debate about the value of influenza vaccination. Predicting the vagaries of viral mutation and consequent epidemic spread has taxed the brains of some of our best epidemiologists for the last year.
While our eyes have been on the coming influenza season, we have missed another critical viral recombination event. The MicroGnome can reveal that there has been a high level mutation in the dominant strain of pollyvirus. His friend, Professor Boughton-Delirium, recently described the results of pollyvirus recombination in Europe, which resulted in a major pollyvirus oubreak known as the General Infection of 2010.
It is interesting to note that the upstream events that led to this epidemic probably began with a change in a key control gene, similar to the pollyvirus genome recombination event witnessed in our region so very recently. The question has to be asked how quickly the new strain will stabilise or whether it will create the population instability necessary to precipitate a similar epidemic in our region? Which virus will prevail, and will it be another co-infection with a suburbivirus/rurivirus combination or a recurrence of seasonal rubivirus?
The next few weeks will no doubt provide the answer.
