Monday, March 26, 2012

CIDRAP: NEWS SCAN: Severe-flu gene?, H1N1 deaths in India, flu vaccine patent, foodborne norovirus outbreaks

Mar 26, 2012

Researchers pinpoint gene that may play role in severe flu cases
A genetic finding may help explain why the same influenza strain produces serious, even life-threatening symptoms in some people but only mild manifestations in others, according to a study yesterday in Nature. UK and US researchers found that people who carry a specific variant of a gene called IFITM3 are significantly more likely to be hospitalized when infected with influenza than those who carry other variants. The IFITM3 gene has been shown in genetic-screening studies to block the growth of flu and dengue viruses in cells, according to a Wellcome Trust news release on the study. This finding led the team to test the gene's role in viral protection in mice. They found that removing the gene from mice turned mild flu cases fatal. The researchers then sequenced the IFITM3 genes of 53 patients hospitalized with flu and found that a statistically significant number had an IFITM3 variant (SNP rs12252-C) that is rare in the general population. "Collectively, these data reveal that the action of a single antiviral protein, IFITM3, can profoundly alter the course of the flu and potentially other viruses in both human and mouse," said co–senior author Paul Kellam, PhD, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, in the release. Abraham Brass, MD, Phd, of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the other co–senior author, added, "Our efforts suggest that individuals and populations with less IFITM3 activity may be at increased risk during a pandemic."
Mar 25 Nature abstract
Mar 25 Wellcome Trust news release

India reports 12 recent H1N1 deaths
A rise in pandemic 2009 H1N1 (pH1N1) flu infections in India has led to 12 deaths this month, according to BBC News. Half of those deaths were in the western state of Maharashtra, with Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnatak also reporting pH1N1 deaths, according to Health Secretary P. K. Pradhan. Nearly 130 people have become infected in the country, with many of them hospitalized. In Pune, Maharashtra's second-largest city after Mumbai, hospitals are seeing new pH1N1 patients every day, according to a local journalist.
Mar 23 BBC News report

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