‘The problem child of seasonal flu’: Beware this winter’s virus
People in public health hate H3N2 flu seasons, like the one gripping most of North America right now. So do folks who work in hospitals and in the care facilities that look after the elderly.
To put it flatly, H3N2 is the problem child of seasonal flu.
It causes more deaths than the other influenza A virus, H1N1, as well as flu B viruses. It’s a quirky virus that seems, at every turn, to misbehave and make life miserable for the people who contract it, the scientists trying to keep an eye on it, and the drug companies struggling to produce an effective vaccine against it.
“H3 viruses dwarf the contribution of H1 to overall epidemic burden [of influenza] in terms of hospitalizations, care facility outbreaks, deaths. I think uniformly in public health we dread H3N2 epidemics over and above those due to H1N1,” said flu expert Dr.
