Swine flu outbreak in India could be more dangerous than previously thought

Scientists are concerned that strain due to swine flu outbreak in India has acquired mutations that have made it more dangerous than previously circulating strains of H1N1 influenza.

Since December, swine flu in India has killed more than 1,200 people, and the new findings by MIT study contradict previous reports from Indian health officials that the strain has not changed from the version of H1N1 that emerged in 2009 and has been circulating around the world ever since.

Paper's senior author Ram Sasisekharan stressed that they needed better surveillance to track the outbreak and to help scientists to determine how to respond to this influenza variant, and to determine whether these mutations are present in the strain that is causing the current outbreak, which is most prevalent in the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan and has infected more than 20,000 people so far.

They found that the recent Indian strains carry new mutations in the hemagglutinin protein that are known to make the virus more virulent. Hemagglutinin binds to glycan receptors found on the surface of respiratory cells, and the strength of that binding determines how effectively the virus can infect those cells.

Their goal is to get a clearer picture of the strains that have been circulating and therefore anticipate the right kind of a vaccine strategy for 2016, Sasisekharan said.

The findings are published in Cell Host and Microbe.