Pacific D
Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Selection Using Crossmatch Test (306701)
*Vera Liu, University of Texas at AustinStephen Walker, University of Texas at Austin
Keywords: Non-parametric test, influenza, vaccine, public health, phylogeny
Influenza vaccines are crucial in preventing illness during flu seasons and hence selecting vaccine components each year has been an area of extensive research (see Center for Disease Control and Prevention summary). In this paper, we propose the crossmatch (nonparametric) hypothesis test (see Rosenbaum, JRSS B, 2005) applied to phylogenetic trees, to assess the level of discrepancy between circulating flu virus strains and those from previous years: the viruses being represented by a phylogenetic tree. The crossmatch test has some significant advantages compared to traditional parametric tests: it preserves more information in the data.The outcome of the test would indicate whether the circulating influenza virus has mutated sufficiently in the past year to be considered as a new population of virus, suggesting the need for a new vaccine. We validate the test on simulated phylogenetic tree samples with varying branch length, as well as with publicly available virus sequence data from Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID: https://www.gisaid.org/).