PREDICTING HOTSPOTS FOR INFLUENZA VIRUS REASSORTMENT

Abstract

The 1957 and 1968 infl uenza pandemics, each of which killed ≈1 million persons, arose through reassortment events. Infl uenza virus in humans and domestic animals could reassort and cause another pandemic. To identify geographic areas where agricultural production systems are conducive to reassortment, we fi tted multivariate regression models to surveillance data on infl uenza A virus subtype H5N1 among poultry in China and Egypt and subtype H3N2 among humans. We then applied the models across Asia and Egypt to predict where subtype H3N2 from humans and subtype H5N1 from birds overlap; this overlap serves as a proxy for co-infection and in vivo reassortment. For Asia, we refi ned the prioritization by identifying areas that also have high swine density. Potential geographic foci of reassortment include the northern plains of India, coastal and central provinces of China, the western Korean Peninsula and southwestern Japan in Asia, and the Nile Delta in Egypt.