Discussion - Naming Issues: So now what are we supposed to call these flu viruses?

[alert]

From the time in which flu viruses were first discovered until 1977, naming the circulating flu virus was easy. There was H1N1 (or Spanish flu) from 1918 to 1957, H2N2 (or Asian flu) from 1957 to 1968, and then H3N2 (or Hong Kong flu) from 1968 to 1977. Then a new H1N1 (or Russian flu) arrived on the scene, but it still wasn't that hard to tell apart. And while the names might change slightly from year to year (i.e. Fujian begat Brisbane begat Perth), it was just good old H1N1 and H3N2. Either the georgraphical or the H-N naming system was sufficient to rapidly identify the virus.

Then the pandemic hit in 2009, and we had a new H1N1. Suddenly, we had to make the distinction between old/human/seasonal/Brisbane H1N1 and novel/pandemic/swine/2009/Mexican/California H1N1. As the virus rapidly caused a pandemic, we chose Pandemic H1N1 or 2009 H1N1 to avoid any geographical bias, which has recently been renamed H1N1pdm09.

Now a new swine H3N2 virus has entered the scene in the United States. They call it trH3N2, for triple reassortment. It is a reassortment of three viruses that circulated in swine in the 1990s. So we had old/seasonal H3N2 and new/trH3N2. Still not too bad to handle.

But then new/trH3N2 reassorted with novel/pandemic/swine/2009/Mexican/California H1N1, producing a virus with 7 segments from trH3N2, and the M gene from novel/pandemic/swine/2009/Mexican/California H1N1. There really isn't a good name for this virus. We simply had to refer to it as "trH3N2 with the M gene from H1N1pdm09" or something equally unwieldy.

And now today seems to be the breaking point. The CDC has announced that the virus above with no good name has reassorted with some other swine virus with a different N2, producing yet another "un-name-able" virus infecting humans. And also, one of these H3N2 viruses has reassorted with a swine H1N1 (that hasn't been named above!) to produce a human infection with an H1N2.

So if you have the flu in the US right now, what is the virus infecting you? Is it old/human/seasonal/Brisbane H1N1 (which is pretty rare now due to the next one), novel/pandemic/swine/2009/Mexican/California H1N1, old/Perth H3N2, trH3N2, or one of these three un-name-able viruses? And those are only the ones that have been detected in humans in the USA (i.e. does not include other swine or avian viruses). And if you know what virus it is, are you even able to tell me? I think we may have just about reached the breaking point of the naming system.

Any ideas what to call these things?

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: Discussion - Naming Issues: So now what are we supposed to call these flu viruses?

. . . As the virus rapidly caused a pandemic, we chose Pandemic H1N1 or 2009 H1N1 to avoid any geographical bias, which has recently been renamed H1N1pdm09. . . .

Thanks for raising the thorny issue of naming influenza viruses, both novel and reassorted previously circulating strains. As we move into 2012, I want to claim universal naming rights to any novel H3N2 infections next year as H3N2pdm12. I will deserve the notoriety if a new pandemic strain of H3N2 emerges.

Seriously, it is a thorny issue. Scientists and researchers need to be able to communicate clearly and unequivocally among themselves. On the other hand, national and international public health agencies (such as the CDC and WHO) need to squeeze their influenza messages into two-minute sound bites. The public consumption labeling of the next pandemic virus is critical, otherwise people will need not heed official warnings. The current and past labels such as "Spanish flu", "swine flu", and "bird flu" are good example of catchy labels that resonate with the general public.

The public is fickle. If public health agencies want to get a message out to people about implementing NPI and vaccination strategies for a pandemic strain, they will need a catchy name that the media can pickup and run with. I think that if health official use a scientifically accurate label such as S-Otr(H3N2)pdm12, the preparation and protection message will not be heard and will be ignored by a public that wants everything dumbed down before consumption.

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Discussion - Naming Issues: So now what are we supposed to call these flu viruses?

A revised nomenclature may be helpful for communicating between health agencies and the public but it is largely futile for a correct taxonomic identification, based on phylogeny or cladistics.

Since nothing is pointing toward the conclusion that A(H3N2) triple reassortant with Matrix gene segment from A(H1N1)pdm09 is going to become the next pandemic influenza virus - I will like to wait for more information about actual dispersion in swine and human population and/or in other animal hosts before to think how to name it.

This virus is a novel type A subtype H3 influenza virus with surface glycoproteins similar if not identical to earlier human seasonal strain, reassorted with internal genes from swine, avian and human strains, so that it would be hard to classify it as a NEW subtype - ie with novel HA e NA surface glycoproteins with large proportion of human population without cross-reactive antibodies against them.

In other words, it is not an event such as the classical 'antigenic shift' often responsible for human pandemics.

It is more similar to dr E. Kilbourne description of multiple intrasubtypic mutations, largely underrecognized as cause of circumscribed albeit sometimes severe human outbreaks. (IOH)

 

[alert]

Re: Discussion - Naming Issues: So now what are we supposed to call these flu viruses?

Thanks for raising the thorny issue of naming influenza viruses, both novel and reassorted previously circulating strains. As we move into 2012, I want to claim universal naming rights to any novel H3N2 infections next year as H3N2pdm12. I will deserve the notoriety if a new pandemic strain of H3N2 emerges.

Seriously, it is a thorny issue. Scientists and researchers need to be able to communicate clearly and unequivocally among themselves. On the other hand, national and international public health agencies (such as the CDC and WHO) need to squeeze their influenza messages into two-minute sound bites. The public consumption labeling of the next pandemic virus is critical, otherwise people will need not heed official warnings. The current and past labels such as "Spanish flu", "swine flu", and "bird flu" are good example of catchy labels that resonate with the general public.

The public is fickle. If public health agencies want to get a message out to people about implementing NPI and vaccination strategies for a pandemic strain, they will need a catchy name that the media can pickup and run with. I think that if health official use a scientifically accurate label such as S-Otr(H3N2)pdm12, the preparation and protection message will not be heard and will be ignored by a public that wants everything dumbed down before consumption.

After carefully reading this post, it did suggest a good way to name these viruses. Perhaps we could attach the letters pdmM to the end of any virus with the M gene from 2009 H1N1. The "pdm" in that case would represent the 2009 pandemic, not any current or future one. That way, the virus in Maine and Pennsylvania would be trH3N2pdmM, which is not elegant, but a lot better than anything above. The one in Minnesota would be trH1N2pdmM, and so on.

 

[gsgs]

Re: Discussion - Naming Issues: So now what are we supposed to call these flu viruses?

you can name by date or location of first appearance

we might assign letters or numbers to the most important variants

then reassortants (with no new own name or letter)
can better be named

e.g.
t for triple reassortant (USA,1998)
[or maybe better the unnamed slightly reassorted re-appearance
in 2005 Canada/USA ]
m for (pandemic H1N1,Mexico,2009)
then the new virus were ttttttmt,2011


or the H1N2 ... (I haven't seen it yet)

------------------------------------
even more informative if you add the genetical difference
in promille or such for the 8 segments e.g.
m=tttSteet (28,31,33,71,29,80,49,34) or
m=(28t,31t,33t,71S,29t,80e,49e,34t) or
m=(28u98,31u98,33u98,71u91,29u98,80e78,49e78,34u98) or such

and I think we should agree on (hypothetical) exact index-reference-consensus viruses
to be assigned to new strains and added to genbank

 

[alert]

Re: Discussion - Naming Issues: So now what are we supposed to call these flu viruses?

Apparently, there is now a convention of putting a "v" for variant on the name of such viruses, so trH3N2 could be called H3N2v, distinguishing it from circulating seasonal H3N2:

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/swineflu/news/dec2311flu-br.html

Of course, that doesn't help distinguish when multiple "variant" swine H3N2 viruses are being detected, as appears to be going on...