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Molecular virology

Was the 1918 pandemic caused by a bird flu? Was the 1918 flu avian in origin? (Reply)

Nature volume 440, pages E9–E10 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

We have proposed that the virus responsible for the 1918 human influenza pandemic was avian-like, which to us is a reasonable interpretation of all the available data from phylogenetic, sequence, serological and historical analysis, combined with what is known of influenza A virus biology1,2,3,4. However, Gibbs and Gibbs5 and Antonovics et al.6 question our inferred origin of the 1918 influenza virus.

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Figure 1: Neighbour-joining analysis using MEGA 2.1 software14 of influenza A viral amino-acid sequences of the PB2 polymerase subunit.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Rockville, 20850, Maryland, USA

    Jeffery K. Taubenberger, Ann H. Reid, Raina M. Lourens, Ruixue Wang, Guozhong Jin & Thomas G. Fanning

  2. Board on Life Sciences, The National Academies, 20001, Washington DC, USA

    Ann H. Reid

  3. Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 52242, Iowa, USA

    Raina M. Lourens

Authors
  1. Jeffery K. Taubenberger
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  2. Ann H. Reid
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  3. Raina M. Lourens
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  4. Ruixue Wang
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  5. Guozhong Jin
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  6. Thomas G. Fanning
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Correspondence to Jeffery K. Taubenberger.

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Taubenberger, J., Reid, A., Lourens, R. et al. Was the 1918 pandemic caused by a bird flu? Was the 1918 flu avian in origin? (Reply). Nature 440, E9–E10 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04825

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