And we were looking for patients that died very quickly after the onset of symptoms in order to try to capture the virus while it was still present and replicating. And of those six cases we examined only one was positive. Well, we found small fragments of the viral RNA, the genetic material, in this case. But what we find is that it s a virus that does not match any strain of influenza virus isolated since, but it is most related to the kind of influenzas that infect swine, suggesting that this influenza entered the human population after being passaged through pigs. The ultimate goal of the project would be to see if there is a genetic basis for why this particular virus was so virulent.
Influenza viruses mutate.
Continually new strains arise, which is why vaccines have to be made every year to match the current strain. And this kind of thing could certainly happen again. And if we could get a global understanding of how you would relate the genetic structure of a virus to its virulence, we would be able to predict future epidemics. That s correct. Pandemic being a worldwide epidemic.