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Researchers have found that flu develops in the roof of the mouth - and that it is spread through coughs and sneezes.

The key area of where flu develops is located in the soft palate separating the back of the mouth and the nasal cavity, according to new research.

Scientists have found that the inflammation associated with infection in the soft palate stimulates the sneezing and coughing, with it propelling the flu virus out of the mouth enabling it to spread easily.

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Dr Kanta Subbarao, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the US said: "Historically, the soft palate has not been examined in animal models of influenza."

Published in the science journal Nature, the research was carried out on ferrets whose mouths are similar to humans.

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They found evidence that a patch of mucous-coated soft tissue is a key site for the emergence of flu viruses.

Scientists continued their research by making mutations of the flu strain responsible for the 2009 influenza pandemic, a strain notoriously good at spreading from person to person.

They then used the engineered virus to infect a group of ferrets, which are widely used as a model of human influenza infection to analyse how it spread.