Tag Archives: H3N2

Global: Influenza spikes make holiday headlines

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Flu is surg­ing in sev­eral parts of the world, with pan­demic 2009 H1N1 (pH1N1) out­breaks mak­ing head­lines in Pales­tine, Nor­way, and Yemen, and ris­ing num­bers of ill­nesses, pri­mar­ily from the H3N2 strain, reported in US states such as Min­nesota and South Carolina.

A Pales­tin­ian health offi­cial said a pH1N1 out­break has killed nine peo­ple and infected 225 more, as reported on 31 Decem­ber 2012. Mean­while, Nor­we­gian offi­cials said more patients are test­ing pos­i­tive for the virus in the country’s major cities, includ­ing 84 at a hos­pi­tal west of Oslo, a city that has acti­vated per­son­nel to respond to a pos­si­ble major out­break. In Yemen, five recent flu deaths prompted health offi­cials to set up an oper­a­tions cen­ter to address a poten­tial out­break, accord­ing to a report on 2 Jan­u­ary 2013. In the United States, where the H3N2 virus has been dom­i­nat­ing, surg­ing num­bers of flu cases in South Car­olina have led some clin­ics to call in more staff to han­dle the load, reported on 2 Jan­u­ary 2013. Jim Ellis, MD, med­ical direc­tor for MD 360 Con­ve­nient Care prac­tices, said clin­ics in Greenville and Simp­sonville are see­ing about 90 flu patients a day. In Min­nesota, a hol­i­day spike in flu cases has led to con­cern that this sea­son could be the worst in sev­eral years. State health offi­cials said 120 peo­ple were hos­pi­tal­ized for flu dur­ing the week end­ing 22 Decem­ber 2012, nearly dou­ble the pre­vi­ous week, a pace that could rival the 2009 H1N1 pan­demic months.
(CIDRAP 1/2/2013)

Avian-origin H3N2 canine influenza virus circulating in farmed dogs in Guangdong, China

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Su S, Li HT, Zhao FR, et al. Infec­tion, Genet­ics and Evo­lu­tion. 20 Decem­ber 2012. doi:10.1016/j.meegid.2012.11.018.
Avail­able at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156713481200370X

Abstract. Since 2006, more and more cases of the infec­tious H3N2 canine influenza virus (CIV) in pet dogs have been reported in south­ern China. How­ever, lit­tle is known about the preva­lence sit­u­a­tion of H3N2 CIV infec­tions in farmed dogs in China. This is the first sys­tem­atic epi­demi­o­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance of CIV in dif­fer­ent dog pop­u­la­tions in south­ern China. Two virus strains A/canine/Guangdong/1/2011(H3N2) and A/canine/Guangdong/5/2011(H3N2) were iso­lated from canine nasal swabs col­lected at one dog farm in Guangzhou and the other farm in Shen­zhen. Sequence and phy­lo­ge­netic analy­sis of eight gene seg­ments of these viruses revealed that they were most sim­i­lar to the newly iso­lated canine H3N2 viruses in dogs and cats from Korea and China, which orig­i­nated from avian strain. This indi­cates that H3N2 CIV may be a com­mon pathogen for pet and farmed dog pop­u­la­tions in south­ern China at present. Sero­log­i­cal sur­veil­lance has shown that the infec­tion rate of this avian-origin canine influenza in farmed dogs and in pet dogs were 12.22% and 5.3%, respec­tively; as deter­mined by the ELISA. The data also sug­gested that trans­mis­sion occurred, most prob­a­bly by close con­tact, between H3N2 CIV infected dogs in dif­fer­ent dog pop­u­la­tions in recently years. As H3N2 out­breaks among dogs con­tinue in the Guang­dong province (located very close to Hong Kong), the areas where is densely pop­u­lated and with fre­quent ani­mal trade, there is a con­tin­ued risk for pets H3N2 CIV infec­tions and for muta­tions or genetic reas­sort­ment lead­ing to new virus strains with increased trans­mis­si­bil­ity among dogs. Fur­ther in-depth study is required as the H3N2 CIV has been estab­lished in dif­fer­ent dog pop­u­la­tions and posed poten­tial threat to pub­lic health.

USA: CDC reports new H3N2v case

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The CDC said it received a new report of H3N2v infec­tion, the first to be reported since the end of Sep­tem­ber 2012. The patient, from Iowa, had no con­tact with swine or other live­stock the week before becom­ing sick.

Patri­cia Quin­lisk, MD, MPH, med­ical direc­tor of the Iowa Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health, stated that the H3N2v infec­tion was detected within two weeks through rou­tine sur­veil­lance. The patient is a child who has since recov­ered. Iowa reported three H3N2v cases in 2011, but it did not detect any over the sum­mer and fall when sev­eral states—especially Indi­ana and Ohio—were report­ing cases linked to fairs and other sim­i­lar events.

Health offi­cials are inves­ti­gat­ing the source of the infec­tion. Quin­lisk said another mem­ber of the child’s fam­ily had been sick pre­vi­ously but was not tested.

The CDC said the new H3N2v case pushes the num­ber of such infec­tions reported since July 2012 to 311. Most cases were related to con­tact with swine in fair set­tings. The CDC said though instances of human-to-human trans­mis­sion have been iden­ti­fied, there is no evi­dence of ongo­ing trans­mis­sion.
(CIDRAP 11/30/2012)