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The clinical course of influenza ranges from mild disease to lethal infection. Infants, elderly persons, pregnant women, and patients with diabetes, chronic metabolic disorders, and lung, renal, and cardiac diseases are at highest risk for complicated disease. Viral characteristics determining the course of influenza are ill-defined so far, but may also play an important role in the complex virus–host interactions.
One such parameter was recently identified by researchers who compared two 2009 pandemic (AH1N1pdm09) influenza A strains, one isolated from a previously apparently healthy person with a fatal course (F-IAV) and the other from a patient with mild symptoms (M-IAV). Compared with the M-IAV isolate, the F-IAV isolate grew faster in c…