Influenza Virus A H1N1 (2009) (“Human Swine Influenza”)

Abstract

Novel influenza A (H1N1) virus (“human swine flu”) continues to expand globally, and its accurate and rapid diagnosis is important to minimise further spread and to rapidly respond through the administration of appropriate antiviral treatment. Real-time PCR has been widely used to diagnose influenza viruses [1], but a serious limitation of PCR is that false-negative results may occur due to sequence variation in primer and probe targets binding sites. This is particularly relevant for the detection of influenza viruses which undergo continuous mutation during their evolution. Our previous experience has shown that the use of multiple targets can reduce such limitations [2] and may serve as a means of confirming positive results. For this reason two fully validated TaqMan-based reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) methods for the detection of novel influenza A (H1N1) virus are described [3].