A new technique known as phylowave showed potential to identify differences in fitness among viral and bacterial pathogens, based on data from a study including SARS-CoV-2, influenza A subtype H3N2, Bordetella pertussis, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Understanding the genetic diversity and identifying more transmissible pathogens has implications for public health, such as opportunities for targeted vaccination and greater understanding of disease ecology, but identifying lineages with increased fitness remains a challenge, wrote corresponding author Noemie Lefrancq, PhD, of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and colleagues in an article published in the journal Nature.
“While the population composition of some pathogens, notably SARS-CoV-2 and influenza, is widely studied, others, such as…