Divergent evolutionary trajectories of influenza B viruses underlie their contemporaneous epidemic activity [Microbiology]

Influenza B viruses have circulated in humans for over 80 y, causing a significant disease burden. Two antigenically distinct lineages (“B/Victoria/2/87-like” and “B/Yamagata/16/88-like,” termed Victoria and Yamagata) emerged in the 1970s and have cocirculated since 2001. Since 2015 both lineages have shown unusually high levels of epidemic activity, the reasons...

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - January 6, 2020 Category: Science Authors: Ramandeep K. Virk, Jayanthi Jayakumar, Ian H. Mendenhall, Mahesh Moorthy, Pauline Lam, Martin Linster, Julia Lim, Cui Lin, Lynette L. E. Oon, Hong Kai Lee, Evelyn S. C. Koay, Dhanasekaran Vijaykrishna, Gavin J. D. Smith, Yvonne C. F. Su Tags: Biological Sciences Source Type: research