Mutated flu concerns

About half of the H3N2 influenza samples tested in the United States encode altered antigens from the strain used to produce this year’s vaccine.

While widespread vaccination is still the best defense against the influenza virus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned recently that many of this year’s circulating strains are different from the ones used to formulate the annual flu vaccine.

So far this season, more than 90 percent of the reported flu cases in the US are of the H3N2 subtype, and 52 percent of the samples tested have mutations in antigen-encoding genes compared to the sample used to produce the annual vaccine.

For further details, see The Scientist.

Posted by Tim Sandle