RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Influenza C incidence and herd immunity in Lancaster, UK, in the winter of 2014-2015
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 061705
DO 10.1101/061705
A1 Kate V Atkinson
A1 Lisa A Bishop
A1 Glenn Rhodes
A1 Nico Salez
A1 Neil R McEwan
A1 Matthew J Hegarty
A1 Julie Robey
A1 Nicola Harding
A1 Simon Wetherell
A1 Robert M Lauder
A1 Roger W Pickup
A1 Mark Wilkinson
A1 Derek Gatherer
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/11/10/061705.abstract
AB Influenza C is not included in the annual seasonal influenza vaccine, and has historically been regarded as a minor respiratory pathogen. However, recent work has highlighted its potential role as a cause of pneumonia in infants. We performed nasopharyngeal or nasal swabbing and/or serum sampling (n=148) in Lancaster, UK, over the winter of 2014-2015. Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), we estimated a seropositivity of 77%. By contrast, only 2 individuals, both asymptomatic adults, were influenza C-positive by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Deep sequencing of nasopharyngeal samples produced partial sequences for 4 genome segments in one of these patients. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the influenza C genome from this individual is evolutionarily distant to those sampled in recent years and represents a novel genome constellation, indicating that it is a product of a decades-old reassortment event. Although we find no evidence that influenza C was a significant respiratory pathogen during the winter of 2014-2015 in Lancaster, we confirm previous observations of seropositivity in the majority of the population. We calculate that this level of herd immunity would be sufficient to suppress epidemics of influenza C and restricts the virus to sporadic endemic spread.