Professional paper
The role of immune system in control of the influenza pandemic
A. Gagro
A.M. Cepika
E. Kosor
I. Marinić
I. Kuzman
T. Jeren
V. Draženović
S. Rakušić
G. Mlinarić-Galinović
Abstract
Influenza virus is a single-stranded RNA virus of Orthomyxoviridae family. The 3 types of influenza virus, A, B and C, differ in virulence and genomic structure. Frequent mutations in viral surface glycoproteins, hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, result in the changes of antigenic determinants. As a consequence, protective role of immune system becomes inadequate if the changes of influenza virus are significant and accompanied with lack of existing humoral and cellular immunity in an infected individual. The severity of clinical presentation will depend on the capacity of influenza virus to evade or to inhibit different immunologic mechanism, which aim to eliminate the virus from the body. The frequent changes of influenza antigens also hamper the timely development of vaccine as a most important measure to protect from potential influenza epidemics or pandemics. In this paper we discuss the role of immune system in protection from influenza infection with special emphasis on the known findings of immune response in H5N1-infected individuals.
Keywords
Influenza; pandemic; immunity; vaccine
Hrčak ID:
12705
URI
Publication date:
24.3.2006.
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