| | Research Activities Topics on this Page | - H5N1 (Avian Flu) Specific Research
| | |  View the illustration showing the genetic change that enables a flu strain to jump from one animal species to another. | |
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Overview Research is essential to preparing for a pandemic. Expanding research on influenza viruses will lead to better understanding of how these viruses change over time and how the viruses spread. From this research will come new ways to prevent and treat influenza, including how to effectively use vaccines and antivirals.
General Research Activities Virus Research
Read why scientists are studying the mechanisms within influenza viruses.- Second Research Team Finds Same Common Achilles’ Heel in Seasonal and Pandemic Flu Viruses (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
Researchers have identified a common Achilles’ heel in a wide range of seasonal and pandemic influenza A viruses. The study found an infection-fighting protein, or human antibody, that neutralizes various influenza A virus subtypes by attaching to these viruses in the same place. This common attachment site provides a constant region of the flu virus for scientists to target in an effort to develop a so-called universal flu vaccine. Such a vaccine would overcome the annual struggle to make the seasonal flu vaccine match next year’s circulating flu strains and might help blunt emerging pandemic influenza viruses as well. - Scientists Identify Lab-Made Proteins That Neutralize Multiple Strains of Seasonal and Pandemic Flu Viruses (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
Scientists have identified a small family of lab-made proteins that neutralize a broad range of influenza A viruses, including the H5N1 avian virus, the 1918 pandemic influenza virus and seasonal H1N1 flu viruses.
Vaccine Research
Read about WHO's actions to guide, support, and facilitate the development, clinical evaluation, and world-wide access to safe, effective and affordable vaccines against infectious diseases.
Personal Protective Equipment
Prediction/Modeling - The Next Influenza Pandemic: Can It Be Predicted?
(Journal of the American Medical Association)
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health discuss why predicting the next pandemic is so difficult and outline steps that can be taken to better understand the behavior of the virus
Read about research, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), that uses computer modeling to predict results of different actions to reduce the number of cases and slow the spread of pandemic flu. Includes video clip of two scenarios.
Learning from the Past - Early Pandemic Flu Wave May Protect Against Worse One Later (National Institutes of Health)
Evidence from the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 indicates that getting the flu early protected many people against a second deadlier wave.
Researchers find that the spread of yearly flu epidemics in an area within the US is closely connected with people going to and from work.
Technology Transfer
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H1N1 (Swine Flu) Specific Research
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H5N1 (Avian Flu) Specific Research H5N1: Virus Research
H5N1: Vaccine Research
Questions and answers about testing and evaluating potential avian flu vaccines for people.
H5N1: Learning from the Past - Scientists Isolate Genes that Made 1918 Flu Lethal (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Researchers identify a set of three genes that helped underpin the extraordinary virulence of the 1918 virus. - Bacterial Pneumonia Caused Most Deaths in 1918 Influenza Pandemic (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
Study finds that pneumonia was caused when bacteria that normally inhabit the nose and throat invaded the lungs along a pathway created when the virus destroyed the cells that line the bronchial tubes and lungs.
Summary of research results comparing the structure of an H5 protein from a highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 avian flu virus to the same proteins from other pandemic flu A viruses, including the deadly 1918 virus.
Learn how CDC's research to piece together the virus responsible for the 1918 pandemic influenza virus is guiding preparation for a potential pandemic influenza.
H5N1: Virus Sharing
Find out how the WHO collaborates with an international network of laboratories and countries to obtain H5N1 sequencing data.
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![Click to view global map documenting H5N1 Avian influenza outbreaks by country and type [animal (wildlife, poultry, or both) or human]](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090514225423im_/http://pandemicflu.gov/images/sm_pop_image.gif)
