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New flu strain could bring another severe season

2025-11-24 07:55:00, Shëndeti CNA

A new flu strain spreading overseas could set the stage for another difficult winter in the United States, experts warn.

The strain, called subclade K, has caused a surge in flu cases in the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan. And now signs suggest it is starting to spread across the United States as flu activity increases.

According to the latest U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) FluView report, reported flu activity in the United States remains low but is increasing rapidly.

Last year's flu season was the worst the United States had seen in nearly 15 years and led to at least 280 child deaths, according to the CDC.

Most cases this year are from the H3N2 virus and about half of them belong to the subclade K variant, the same type that fueled a difficult flu season in the Southern Hemisphere.

Since it was not widely circulating when the strains were selected for the vaccine update, this year's flu vaccine targets similar strains of the virus.

"It's not like we're expecting a complete loss of protection for the vaccine, but we can probably expect a small decline if this is the virus that dominates the season, and early indications are that it probably will," Richard Webby, a researcher at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, told CNN.

Early findings from the UK's Health Security Agency suggest the variant carries seven genetic changes to a large part of the virus, making it slightly harder for the body's immune system to recognise it.

However, they found that the flu vaccine has reduced the risk of hospitalization or emergency care by about 75% in children and 30% to 40% in adults so far this season.

What worries experts even more is that it appears that fewer Americans are getting vaccinated against the flu.

Data from IQVIA shows that pharmacies dispensed 26.5 million flu shots from August to October, down from 28.7 million during the same period last year.

"I'm not surprised," said Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

She said recent debates about vaccine safety have left people confused, but perhaps at worst have left people anxious about vaccination.

Flu vaccination rates in Australia also fell this year and the country continued to record more than 443,000 cases.

"What they saw in Australia is that they had a bad season. So it's concerning for you and us, what's coming," Dr. Earl Rubin, director of the division of infectious diseases at Montreal Children's Hospital, told CNN.

Some early indicators already show increasing flu levels in the US

The WastewaterSCAN network found influenza A in 40% of samples in November, up from 18% in October, according to Marlene Wolfe, an assistant professor in the department of environmental health at Emory University in Atlanta.

Only four U.S. monitoring sites in Maine, Vermont, Iowa and Hawaii have officially crossed the threshold to declare high flu activity, but experts say the trend is clear.

While it's not yet clear whether subclade K can cause more severe disease, just a surge in infections could cause a staggering increase in hospitalizations, Rubin noted.

"It's not too late. Go get your flu shot," said Dr. Adam Lauring, chief of the department of infectious diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor.

These results are preliminary and have not yet been peer-reviewed./ CNA