Cross-immunity and Influenza Epidemics

 Carlos Castillo-Chavez

Disease dynamics are intimately connected to biological, environmental and social processes over multiple time scales and levels of social and biological organization. Despite the myriad of complexities associated with disease dynamics, macroscopic epidemic patterns emerge but finding effective ways of making use of this knowledge remain. In a highly interconnected world, epidemic outbreaks become instant potential health and/or economic global threats with increasing segments of the population playing active roles on the transmission patterns of infectious diseases like influenza but we cannot and should not ignore the role of evolutionary forces at the individual and population level. In this talk I will address the role of cross immunity on influenza epidemics after a brief summary of the 2009 A/H1N1 pandemic.