By Kevin E. Noonan

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced
Wednesday that it had assembled a database of the entire genomic complement of
2,000 human and avian influenza strains that are publicly available from the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).  The information in this database represents
flu samples collected worldwide.

The database is the result of the Influenza Genome
Sequencing project, started at NIH in 2004.  NIAID funded a variety of influenza sequencing efforts by university and
private entities, including The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR);
Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health in Albany, NY; the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta; St. Jude Children’s
Research Hospital in Memphis, TN; the World Organization for Animal Health /
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (OIE/FAO) Reference
Laboratory for Newcastle Disease and Avian Influenza in Padova, Italy; The Ohio
State University in Columbus, OH; Children’s Hospital Boston; Baylor College of
Medicine in Houston; and Canterbury Health Laboratories in Christchurch, New
Zealand.

The work is not completed:  sequencing capacities have grown to more than
200 viral genomes per month and is ongoing.  The sequence information is being posted on the GenBank database as it is
acquired.

This continued effort is relevant to developing vaccines for influenza, which is
characterized by high mutation and recombination rates.  This information is particularly useful for developing vaccines to
so-called "seasonal" influenza, which kills between 250,000 and
500,000 people worldwide each year.  The
information also helps determine the appropriate vaccines for the population of
influenza virus extant each season and in different parts of the world.  The database will be even more important
if a pandemic strain arises, such as the Asian "bird flu" of recent
years, since pandemics can cause much more widespread mortality – an estimated
40-60 million people died in the 1918 pandemic.