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Influenza: A case study

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This free course, Influenza: A case study, explores the biology of influenza, covering a range of topics including: the virus, infection, replication, mutation, immune responses, pathology, surveillance, diagnosis and treatment.

Course 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.
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First Published: 09/08/2012

Updated: 13/03/2019

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