Childhood immune imprinting to influenza A shapes birth year-specific risk during seasonal H1N1 and H3N2 epidemics.

ABSTRACT: Across decades of co-circulation in humans, influenza A subtypes H1N1 and H3N2 have caused seasonal epidemics characterized by different age distributions of cases and mortality. H3N2 causes the majority of severe, clinically attended cases in high-risk elderly cohorts, and the majority of overall deaths, whereas H1N1 causes fewer deaths overall, and cases shifted towards young and middle-aged adults. These contrasting age profiles may result from differences in childhood imprinting to H1N1 and H3N2 or from differences in evolutionary rate between subtypes. Here we analyze a large epidemiological surveillance dataset to test whether childhood immune imprinting shapes seasonal influenza epidemiology, and if so, whether it acts primarily via homosubtypic immune memory or via broader, heteros

SUBMITTER: Gostic KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6922319 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature