The host range or host specificity of a parasite is the collection of hosts that an organism can utilize as a partner. In the case of human parasites, the host range influences the epidemiology of the parasitism or disease. For instance, the production of antigenic shifts in Influenza A virus can result from pigs being infected with the virus from several different hosts (such as human and bird). This co-infection provides an opportunity for mixing of the viral genes between existing strains, thereby producing a new viral strain. An influenza vaccine produced against an existing viral strain might not be effective against this new strain, which then requires a new influenza vaccine to be prepared for the protection of the human population
Read more about this topic: Host (biology)
Famous quotes containing the words host and/or range:
“For the shoe pinches, even though it fits perfectly.
Apples were made to be gathered, also the whole host of the world’s ailments and troubles.
There is no time like the present for giving in to this temptation.
Tomorrow you’ll weep what of it?”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“[F]or as Socrates says that a wise man is a citizen of the world, so I thought that a wise woman was equally at liberty to range through every station or degree of men, to fix her choice wherever she pleased.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)