When two or more strains of a virus infect the same person, they can exchange genetic material and create new, more dangerous variants of a disease through a process called reassortment.

Because of its segmented pattern, the OROV genome is likely to undergo reassortment and recombination events. The study identified 21 reassortment events (including 17 S-M, 7 S-L, and 11 M-L ...

That scenario is caused by “reassortment,” the exchange of genetic material when hosts are infected with multiple versions of a virus. The U.S. Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant ...