A McMaster University researcher is working with isolated Hutterite communities in Western Canada to understand the transmission of pandemic diseases like influenza.

Dr. Mark Loeb and his research team have received $1.6 million in funding to carry out the research from the Rx&D Health Research Foundation (HRF), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

What questions are the researchers trying to answer?

The research project will look at these major questions:

• How long do people shed the virus and what are the factors that determine this?
• Are there genes that determine response to the vaccine?
• What factors affect patterns of influenza infection during a community outbreak?
• How frequently does influenza transmission between pigs and humans occur?

By attempting to answer these questions, the team grant researchers will generate knowledge that planners, policy-makers and health professionals can use while they prepare for seasonal outbreaks and a potential pandemic.

Why are these questions important?

These questions are important because the data they generate will inform strategies intended to reduce the transmission of influenza. When leading scientists from across Canada gathered in 2005 to make recommendations for research that would enhance influenza prevention and control, they identified research into virus transmission as a high priority. The scientists who attended the Canadian Influenza Research Priorities Workshop argued that more research was required so that we could better understand how infected people shed the influenza virus and how community conditions could potentially influence the spread of disease to susceptible persons.

How will this research help with pandemic preparedness?

Emergency preparations of any kind, including a potential pandemic, demand that planners consider ways to prevent the emergency from ever happening in the first place and, should those efforts not succeed, then consider how a serious situation may be controlled. Research into the prevention and control of influenza is thus a key aspect of pandemic preparedness. Some of the potential benefits from this research study could include: improved diagnostic tools; strategies to optimize vaccine allocation; guidelines to modify people’s behaviour; and enhanced understanding of how viruses are transmitted between humans and animals.

How is this study organized?

The team grant is organized into six interconnected projects, looking at:

• Influenza viral load in children and adults, to determine how long and how often people without symptoms share the infection with others.
• Community spread of influenza, to see how influenza spreads both through time and across space.
• Effectiveness of repeated immunization, to see if effectiveness of flu vaccine is influenced.
• Mathematical modeling, to improve accuracy of models of influenza transmission.
• Genetic determinants, to improve knowledge about how vaccines work within a population.
• Zoonotic transmission, to better understand interspecies transmission of influenza and to help to inform public policy for farm occupational health and biosecurity.

Why are you working with the Hutterites?

Influenza surveillance at Hutterite colonies is the core of this research program. The Hutterites were founded as Protestant sects in the 16th century Anabaptist movement of Switzerland. The majority of Hutterites live in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba where they practice communal farming on small colonies relatively isolated from towns and cities. The limited contact that colony members have with outsiders reduces the likelihood of virus re-introduction. Since the colonies are relatively small, between 80 and 120 people, influenza can be efficiently monitored.

What is the timeline for this project?

This is a three-year project. Year 1 is already underway.

Notes on influenza:

Influenza pandemics occur repeatedly because of the unique characteristics of the influenza virus. The virus changes continually through a process called antigenic drift and the result is repeated infection in hosts who have no immunity to the new strain. Since most of these changes are minor, hosts will have at least some degree of existing immunity to help them fight the virus. Occasionally, the virus undergoes a major change, evolving into a form that is completely unrecognizable to a host’s immune system. If this novel virus is particularly virulent, and can be easily spread from host to host, the conditions are set for a pandemic.

Three times during the 20th century, pandemic influenza spread across the globe. The most infamous pandemic occurred in the waning months of the World War I. Commonly known as the "Spanish Flu", this pandemic affected large portions of the world’s population and was thought to have killed at least 40 million people. 

Influenza is caused by a virus that attacks the upper respiratory tract. Most people recognize influenza by its symptoms: the sudden onset of fever, weakness, fatigue, headache, cough, sore throat and a runny nose. Healthy people typically find the disease to be unpleasant and disruptive. For the very young, the elderly, or people with chronic medical conditions, influenza can very serious, even fatal. Each year, influenza spreads rapidly around the world in seasonal epidemics. Influenza outbreaks occur frequently because the virus is easily transmitted and always changing.