Who discovered the 2009 H1N1 flu virus?

Answer 1

It was a team effort. Teams of scientists from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and public health departments from several other nations worked together to identify and isolate the virus that was causing the outbreak in Mexico, California and Texas in the US.

One of the scientists mentioned to have been involved in the analysis was the leading virologist, Wendy Barclay, who on May 1, 2009 determined that there were characteristics of the virus that resembled other viruses that had caused only mild symptoms and she indicated that this new 2009 H1N1 influenza was unlikely to give most people serious symptoms.

It was just prior to that when on April 27, 2009 the CDC Scientists in Atlanta were able to document the genome sequence of the new strain to share with other scientists in their databases. Not long afterward, on May 6, 2009, Canadian scientists from Winnipeg were able to share the full genetic sequencing of the viruses that had struck Mexico and Canada.

The scientists all over the world remain very busy working and sharing information to further various studies of the pandemic flu still underway.

Answer 2

The 2009 H1N1 flu virus was first identified by a combination of researchers, including scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). They conducted studies on the virus that led to its identification and subsequent classification as a pandemic strain.