United States | News & Politics

When I did 4+ months of research into avian influenza a year ago, most the literature I sourced used variants as the term, but I don't see why strain wouldn't work as well. Also, you're comment about if H5N1 or H3N2 doesn't cover the fact that the H5N1 variant would likely uptake aspects of H3N2 genome (or whatever was the prior most common variant) into it's genetic makeup.

Virology is an insanely intricate field as no two viral families have much in common at all. Viruses are fascinating as while they are truly as simplistic as it gets, they still have highly specific task they each evolve to ensure their future reproduction.

Fun fact about viral infections, both the human placenta and myelin sheath are results of an ancient ancestor of ours having a retroviral infection!