Learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• define and use, or recognise definitions and applications of, each of the glossary terms in the course

• describe influenza viruses, their structure, how they are transmitted, how they infect cells and replicate and how they produce their damage in the host

• outline the different types of immune defence which are deployed against flu infections, distinguishing those that act against infected cells from those that act against free virus

• describe how strains of the virus change over time, and relate this to the flu viruses that occur in birds and other mammals

• explain how the epidemic pattern of influenza can be related to the evolution of new strains of virus and to the specificity of the immune response against each strain.