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Researchers discover the 2009 swine flu pandemic originated in Mexico

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  • Researchers discover the 2009 swine flu pandemic originated in Mexico

    The 2009 swine H1N1 flu pandemic?responsible for more than 17,000 deaths worldwide?originated in pigs from a very small region in central Mexico, a research team headed by investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is reporting.


    The scientists say their findings, published in the journal eLife, represent the first time that the origin of an influenza pandemic virus has been determined in such detail.
    Researchers used state-of-the-art genetic analysis to identify the precise location and the main molecular transformations that allowed a pig influenza virus to jump into humans. They found that the virus responsible was a mix of one North American swine virus that had jumped between birds, humans, and pigs, and a second Eurasian swine virus, that circulated for more than 10 years in pigs in Mexico before jumping into humans. Previously, the most closely related ancestor viruses to the 2009 H1N1 virus were identified in Asian swine, but they were not as close genetically to the human 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus as the swine Mexican isolates found in this study.

    The 2009 swine H1N1 flu pandemic—responsible for more than 17,000 deaths worldwide—originated in pigs from a very small region in central Mexico, a research team headed by investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is reporting.


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