Data from: A brief history of bird flu

In 1918, a strain of influenza A virus caused a human pandemic resulting in the deaths of 50 million people. A century later, with the advent of sequencing technology and corresponding phylogenetic methods, we know much more about the origins, evolution and epidemiology of influenza epidemics. Here we review the history of avian influenza viruses through the lens of their genetic makeup: from their relationship to human pandemic viruses, starting with the 1918 H1N1 strain, through to the highly pathogenic epidemics in birds and zoonoses up to 2018. We describe the genesis of novel influenza A virus strains by reassortment and evolution in wild and domestic bird populations, as well as the role of wild bird migration in their long-range spread. The emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, and the zoonotic incursions of avian H5 and H7 viruses into humans over the last couple of decades are also described. The threat of a new avian influenza virus causing a human pandemic is still present today, although control in domestic avian populations can minimize the risk to human health.SupplementaryText_DataThis file describes the subsampling procedure for compiling the sequence data sets, and the procedures for creating the phylogenetic trees. Additionally, links for visualisations of the tree data in the online program ITOL are provided.internals_subsampleThe files in this zip file contain Influenza A virus nucleotide sequence data, phylogenetic trees and data tables from segments = 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 (the internal segments). See ReadMe.txt for more details.internals_subsample_for_displayThe files in this zip file contain Influenza A virus nucleotide sequence data, phylogenetic trees and data tables from segments = 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 (the internal segments). This data was used to create Figure 1. Please see ReadMe.txt for more details.segment4_HA_H5The files in this zip file contain Influenza A virus nucleotide sequence data, phylogenetic trees and data tables from segment 4 (Hemagglutinin, HA) subtype H5N1-H5N9, including highly pathogenic and low pathogenic strains. This data was used to create Figure 5. Please see ReadMe.txt for more details