Brief Communications Arising

Nature 440, E9-E10 (27 April 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature04825

Molecular virology: Was the 1918 pandemic caused by a bird flu? Was the 1918 flu avian in origin? (Reply)

Jeffery K. Taubenberger1, Ann H. Reid1,2, Raina M. Lourens1,3, Ruixue Wang1, Guozhong Jin1 and Thomas G. Fanning1

We have proposed that the virus responsible for the 1918 human influenza pandemic was avian-like, which to us is a reasonable interpretation of all the available data from phylogenetic, sequence, serological and historical analysis, combined with what is known of influenza A virus biology1, 2, 3, 4. However, Gibbs and Gibbs5 and Antonovics et al.6 question our inferred origin of the 1918 influenza virus.

  1. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Department of Molecular Pathology, Rockville, Maryland 20850, USA
  2. Board on Life Sciences, The National Academies, Washington DC 20001, USA
  3. Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA

Correspondence to: Jeffery K. Taubenberger1 Email: taubenberger@afip.osd.mil

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