ViroBlog from hVIVO: January 2013

Retroscreen Virology Ltd is part of a CDC grant in which we are trying to understand how influenza virus is spread. One of our colleagues is conducting a study in the USA and shortly we will be conducting a study in the UK.

Professor Don Milton recently gave a series of interviews for US TV and explained how important this work is, see the links below.

Channel 9 story shot at UMD SPH: http://ter.ps/1vv

Channel 7 news story shot at UMD: http://ter.ps/1vx

Channel 5 interview: http://ter.ps/1vw (very brief interview)

Norway Has Most Intense Europe Flu Transmission, EU Says - Bloomberg

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-14/norway-has-most-intense-europe-flu-transmission-eu-says.html

Posted by Rob LW

PLOS ONE: A Nice Day for an Infection? Weather Conditions and Social Contact Patterns Relevant to Influenza Transmission

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0048695

Posted by Rob LW

New York declares emergency as flu crisis spreads | The Times

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article3656508.ece

Posted by Rob LW

Sunday 13 January 2013

NYC Flu Outbreak Is Public Health Emergency

Officials are tackling the worst influenza outbreak in several years and an immunisation programme has been expanded to reduce the spread of the illness.

Pharmacists are not usually authorised to vaccinate children under 18 but New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has suspended this order to increase the number of people being protected.

The 20,000 reported cases are more than four times the 4,400 positive laboratory tests reported for the whole of the previous season.

"We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York state is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City," Mr Cuomo said in a statement.

"Therefore, I have directed my administration, the State Health Department and others to marshall all needed resources to address this public health emergency."

The flu season in the US got under way a month early, in December, driven by a strain that tends to make people sicker. That led to worries that it might be a bad season, following one of the mildest flu seasons in recent memory.

The latest numbers do show that the flu surpassed an "epidemic" threshold last week. That is based on deaths from pneumonia and influenza in 122 US cities.

The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people in an average year. Nationally, 20 children have died from the flu this season.

Flu usually peaks in mid-winter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhoea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

Posted by Rob LW

Saturday 12 January 2013

Reference "A nice day for an infection? Weather conditions an..."

PLoS ONE, 2012 vol. 7(11) pp. e48695

A nice day for an infection? Weather conditions and social contact patterns relevant to influenza transmission.

Willem, L; Van Kerckhove, K; Chao, DL; Hens, N; Beutels, P

Although there is no doubt that significant morbidity and mortality occur during annual influenza epidemics, the role of contextual circumstances, which catalyze seasonal influenza transmission, remains unclear. Weather conditions are believed to affect virus survival, efficiency of transmission and host immunity, but seasonality may also be driven by a tendency of people to congregate indoors during periods of bad weather. To test this hypothesis, we combined data from a social contact survey in Belgium with local weather data. In the absence of a previous in-depth weather impact analysis of social contact patterns, we explored the possibilities and identified pitfalls. We found general dominance of day-type (weekend, holiday, working day) over weather conditions, but nonetheless observed an increase in long duration contacts ([Formula: see text]1 hour) on regular workdays with low temperatures, almost no precipitation and low absolute humidity of the air. Interestingly, these conditions are often assumed to be beneficial for virus survival and transmission. Further research is needed to establish the impact of the weather on social contacts. We recommend that future studies sample over a broad spectrum of weather conditions and day types and include a sufficiently large proportion of holiday periods and weekends.

PMID: 23155399

PMCID: PMC3498265
URL - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23155399?dopt=Citation

Cheers

Rob

Sent from another mobile device with an annoyingly small keyboard, apologies for any typos

Wednesday 9 January 2013

Early Flu Season Is Already Hitting US Hard

"The emergency rooms are quite full and it's clear that the annual flu epidemic is in full swing," said Dr Brian Currie, medical director for research at Montefiore Medical Centre in New York.

According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the proportion of people visiting doctors for a flu-like illness has climbed from 2.8% to 5.6% in the last month.

That compares with 2.2% during last year's mild flu season, and a peak of 7.7% during the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic.

"We are coming to the point where we are running out of testing supplies," said Dr Ed Ward, an expert in emergency and internal medicine at Rush, a teaching hospital.

Dr Daniel Lucey, who tracks global flu activity at Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington, said the extremely mild nature of last year's flu season is making this year's seem notably worse by comparison.

Even so, he said, "it's an objective fact that flu viruses are circulating earlier and more widely this year than most years."

Experts say it's not clear why the flu arrived earlier than normal in the US this year.

Although each season is unique, flu activity usually starts to pick up in December, peaks sometime in January or February and runs its course by late March or early April.

One risk of an early flu season is that it arrives before people have had a chance to get vaccinated – a precaution that doctors say is by far the best line of defence against infection.

Experts still say it is not too late to get a flu shot.

"We strongly encourage people to get vaccinated, and we'd like them to do that as soon as possible," said Dr Michael Jhung, a CDC flu expert.

So far, 91% of this year's flu viruses analysed by the CDC match flu strains contained in the vaccine, meaning that it should protect people well.

Vaccine coverage has been fairly high so far. By early December, the CDC had vaccinated an estimated 112 million Americans, Dr Jhung said.

People may still get the flu even if they have been vaccinated, but it will likely be less severe.

Dr William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville, said the flu vaccine was only 70% to 80% effective in healthy young people.

And in older adults, the vaccine only protects about 60% to 65% of those who receive it.

Posted by Rob LW