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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Nasal Wipes for Influenza A Virus Detection and Isolation from Swine
Published on: December 4, 2015
2009 Swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) resembles previous influenza isolates
Carl Kingsford1, Niranjan Nagarajan, Steven L Salzberg
1Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Institute for Advance Computer Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America. carlk@umiacs.umd.edu
Background:
In April 2009, novel swine-origin influenza viruses (S-OIV) were identified in patients from Mexico and the United States. The viruses were genetically characterized as a novel influenza A (H1N1) strain originating in swine, and within a very short time the S-OIV strain spread across the globe via human-to-human contact.
Methodology:
We conducted a comprehensive computational search of all available sequences of the surface proteins of H1N1 swine influenza isolates and found that a similar strain to S-OIV appeared in Thailand in 2000. The earlier isolates caused infections in pigs but only one sequenced human case, A/Thailand/271/2005 (H1N1).
Significance:
Differences between the Thai cases and S-OIV may help shed light on the ability of the current outbreak strain to spread rapidly among humans.
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