The influence of changing host immunity on 1918-19 pandemic dynamics

KJ Bolton; JM McCaw; J McVernon; JD Mathews

Journal article

The influence of changing host immunity on 1918-19 pandemic dynamics

KJ Bolton, JM McCaw, J McVernon, JD Mathews

Epidemics | Published : 2014

DOI: 10.1016/j.epidem.2014.07.004

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Abstract

The sociological and biological factors which gave rise to the three pandemic waves of Spanish influenza in England during 1918-19 are still poorly understood. Symptom reporting data available for a limited set of locations in England indicates that reinfection in multiple waves occurred, suggesting a role for loss of infection-acquired immunity. Here we explore the role that changes in host immunity, driven by a combination of within-host factors and viral evolution, may play in explaining weekly mortality data and wave-by-wave symptomatic attack-rates available for a subset of English cities. Our results indicate that changes in the phenotype of the pandemic virus are likely required to ex..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

James McCaw Author

Jodie McVernon Author

John Mathews Author

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Grants

Awarded by University of Nottingham

Funding Acknowledgements

We thank the NHMRC for supporting this work through grants 400588, 454645, 566908 and 628977. KB acknowledges support from a University of Melbourne McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellowship and visitor support from the University of Nottingham. JMcCaw acknowledges support from an ARC Future Fellowship and JMcVernon the NHMRC. Funds from a University of Melbourne Interdisciplinary Seed Grant were used to consult with the Victorian Partnership of Advanced Computing to develop optimal techniques for simulating the model system. The authors would like to acknowledge exploratory work undertaken by P. Pallaghy, provision of data by D. Pearce and useful discussions with E. McBryde.