Australia's flu season has US health officials bracing for a bad winter, and wishing for a new vaccine
December 5, 2017 by Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
The flu season is just getting underway in North America, but if Australia's experience with influenza is any guide, we're in for a miserable winter.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Wednesday that the United States could experience a "relatively severe influenza season." If so, it would extend a run of bad luck that began in 2014, when the available flu vaccines proved to be a poor match for the most common viruses in circulation.
In the land down under, where the 2017 flu season is now a wrap, public health officials reported record-high rates of flu, as well as above-average numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. The most common flu strain there was the influenza A virus known as H3N2, and the vaccine given to Australians had an effectiveness of only 10 percent, according to preliminary estimates.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-12-australia-flu-season-health-bracing.html
