Richard W. Compans • Michael B. A. Oldstone
Editors

2014

Perhaps first described in the Bible in Numbers 11:31–34 and later by the poet W.H. Auden:
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city
Influenza has over the course of human experience been defined by the suffering, illness, and death rates it caused and causes of epidemics and pandemics worldwide.
Influenza virus belongs to the orthomyxovirus family and comes in three flavors, types A, B, and C, with type A and B viruses being important causes of disease in humans, with the majority of cases due to type A.