Virus Variability and Impact on Epidemiology and Control of Diseases E. Kurstak and A. Hossain I. INTRODUCTION An important number of virus infections and their epidemic developments demonstrate that ineffec tiveness of prevention measures is often due to the mutation rate and variability of viruses (Kurstak et al., 1984, 1987). The new human immunodeficiency retroviruses and old influenza viruses are only one among several examples of virus variation that prevent, or make very difficult. the production of reliable vaccines. It could be stated that the most important factor limiting the effectiveness of vaccines against virus infections is apparently virus variation. Not much is, how ever, known about the factors influencing and responsible for the dramatically diverse patterns of virus variability. II. MUTATION RATE AND VARIABILITY OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL VIRUSES Mutation is undoubtedly the primary source of variation, and several reports in the literature suggest that extreme variability of some viruses may be a consequence of an unusually high mutation rate (Holland et al., 1982; Domingo et al., 1985; Smith and Inglis, 1987). The mutation rate of a virus is defined as the probability that during a single replication of the virus genome a particular nucleotide position is altered through substitution, deletion, insertion. or recombination. Different techniques have been utilized to measure virus mutation rates, and these have been noted in the extent of application to different viruses.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
ISBN-13
9781475792737
eBay Product ID (ePID)
189454868
Product Key Features
Author
M.H.V. Van Regenmortel, Edouard Kurstak, R.G. Marusyk, F.A. Murphy
Publication Name
Virus Variability, Epidemiology and Control
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Subject
Medicine, Zoology, Biology
Publication Year
2013
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
368 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
254mm
Item Width
178mm
Volume
2
Item Weight
736g
Additional Product Features
Series Title
Applied Virology Research
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States
Editor
Edouard Kurstak, M.H.V. Van Regenmortel, F.A. Murphy, R.G. Marusyk
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