Credit Dr Ian Mackay VDU Blog
# 8384
Although his day job at the CDC keeps him from posting as often as his fans would like him to, Dr. Ian York’s Mystery Rays blog has long been a favorite of mine. It is informative, quirky, and often infused with liberal doses of obscure medical and scientific history, of which I am particularly fond.
Yesterday Ian posted an interesting graphic he put together on the prevalence of different sub-types of avian influenza, in a blog called:
By iayork
What subtypes of influenza are found in birds?
Influenza is naturally a disease of wild waterfowl; humans, like dogs, chickens, and whales, are occasional victims of mutated viruses from this vast global reservoir of viruses. In wild birds, flu viruses reassert and recombine wildly, mixing almost all the known subtypes promiscuously.
There are 18 known hemagglutinin subtypes and 11 known neuraminidase subtypes. Two of each are only known from bats, so there are 16 and 9 that could occur together in birds, for a total of 144 possible combinations. Some subtypes of each are rare, and some HA and NA types don’t play well together. Which combinations have been found, and how common are each?
While you are visiting his site, there are literally hundreds of archived posts going back to 2007, well worth perusing.
Flublogia’s `other Ian’ is of course, Virologist Dr. Ian Mackay in Australia, who presents a unique way to look a the panoply of respiratory viruses that afflict humans (see graphic at top of this blog), along with some informative commentary in his blog entitled:.
Respiratory viruses: the viruses we detect in the human respiratory tract
A list of the viruses we can and do detect in the (mostly upper) respiratory tract.
The standard testing panel/diagnostic menu/respiratory panel comprises the influenza A and B viruses, parainfluenza virus 1-3, respiratory syncytial virus, human metapneumovirus, adenoviruses.<SNIP>
So take this figure as a guide, but a pretty good one, of the approximately 227 viruses that comprise pool from which we get infected each year.
(Continue . . . )
Pretty good, indeed. Dr Mackay also has new posts up on:
Influenza viruses in Queensland, Australia: 03-Mar-2014:09-2014.
Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases rise in march: Festival-related?
For both blog authors . . . go for the graphics, but stay for the expert commentary.
