Proteomic Analysis of Influenza

The past several years have increased the public's knowledge of various terms related to virology. Besides learning about messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, N95 masks, and coronaviruses (CoVs), we became familiar with the term pandemic. Pandemics are not novel. There have been approximately 250 pandemics recorded throughout history since 1200 B.C. with approximately 20 of these resulting in the deaths of more than one million people ( https://study.com/learn/lesson/pandemics-in-history.html ; Sampath S et al., Cureus 13:e18136, 2021). The earliest recorded pandemic for which there is detailed information is the Justinian plague (Drancourt M and Raoult D, Clin Microbiol Infect 22:911-915, 2016). This pandemic began in 540 A.D., lasted for two centuries, and was a major factor that hastened the fall of the Roman Empire. So what exactly is a pandemic? At its most basic a pandemic is a disease that is simultaneously occurring worldwide, affecting many individuals. This definition does not include anything about the severity of the disease or the population's immunity. While most people would say that pandemics and epidemics are extremely rare, there have been six just in the last two decades (Bhadoria P et al., J Family Med Prim Care 10:2745-2750, 2021). These include the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 1 (SARS-CoV-1), swine flu, Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome CoV infection, Ebola virus, Zika virus, and the most recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (see Table 9.1).