Chapter 7 Orthomyxovirus infections

The earth is a unity for influenza A virus in a manner not yet found for probably any other parasite and epidemics occur in all inhabited parts of the globe regardless of latitude, longitude, altitude, climate, rainfall, temperature, humidity, race and sex. Influenza A is the classic pandemic virus infection of man and influenza B virus also can cause sharp outbreaks, resulting in significant mortality. An overwhelming amount of data has accumulated on the biochemistry, cell biology, and epidemiology of influenza, but prospects of control of epidemics in the near future are dim. Meanwhile, a holding operation can be achieved using inactivated vaccine and rimantadine (100 mg/daily) in special risk groups in the population until new more effective vaccines and broad spectrum antivirals (active against influenza A and B virus) are developed. Research work is centered on biotechnology to produce immunogenic peptides and proteins and more logical searches for antivirals using amino acid sequence data and also virus specific enzymes such as the virion transcriptase as targets.