Although prevention and treatment strategies are available for influenza, they are not sufficient for vulnerable populations such as young children and newborns.
Mar 18 2024Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign In a new study, published in Virology, a multidisciplinary team of researchers have studied newborn piglets to better understand the progression of influenza infections.
To understand the interactions between the virus and the microbiota, the researchers used four types of viruses that differed based on their ability to cause disease. They introduced these virus suspensions drop-by-drop into each nostril of the piglets and monitored them for 5 days to see whether they displayed any symptoms, including changes in body temperature.
Related StoriesThey also found that regardless of what microbes were present on the first day, the infection disrupted the numbers and types of bacteria that were present in the nasal passages.