A new study published in Nature on Wednesday found that the starting point for influenza development is in the roof of your mouth, according to Mirror.
From there, it is further transmitted through coughs and sneezes.
The particular location in the roof of your mouth that it develops was determined to be the soft palate that separates the back of the mouth with the nasal cavity. When the soft palate becomes infected, it becomes inflamed and this leads to coughing and sneezing.
The research was carried out on ferrets, who have similar mouth structures to humans, and took advantage of a mutation of the flu strain that led to the 2009 influenza pandemic, according to Metro.
"Historically, the soft palate has not been examined in animal models of influenza," said Kanta Subbarao of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
The findings are novel and could help researchers identify better ways to predict influenza transmission and determine which viruses pose the most risks for stimulating a pandemic.
"It really provides us with a handle to very systematically look at any evolving pandemic viruses from the point of view of their ability to gain airborne transmissibility through binding to these 2-6 glycan receptors," said Ram Sasisekharan, one of the study's authors.
