Saturday, August 7, 2010

So...What Will This Winter Bring For Flu in the Northern Hemisphere?

WHO: Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 112
6 August 2010
Excerpts:

Situation update:

The overall situation remains largely unchanged since the last update. Globally, pandemic influenza transmission remains most active in parts of South Asia and in limited areas of tropical South and Central America. In the temperate zone of the southern hemisphere, overall seasonal and pandemic influenza activity remains low, except in South Africa, where peak wintertime influenza transmission due to circulating seasonal influenza viruses (H3N2 and type B) might have recently occurred. Seasonal influenza viruses, particularly H3N2 viruses, continue to circulate in parts of Central America, East Africa, and Southeast Asia.


During the 2010 winter of the temperate southern hemisphere, the most active areas of influenza virus transmission have been in South Africa, where the majority of influenza virus detections have been seasonal influenza H3N2 and type B viruses; pandemic influenza virus has been detected there only sporadically. Elsewhere in Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, and Australia, overall influenza activity remains low and below levels observed during recent, mild, pre-pandemic influenza seasons; among the latter three countries, pandemic influenza viruses have been detected most frequently, however, low level co-circulation of seasonal influenza H3N2 and type B has also been observed.

Chile and Argentina continue to observe low levels of respiratory diseases in the population, and much of what has been observed in recent months has been due to circulation of respiratory viruses other than influenza, particularly RSV. In Australia and New Zealand there has been a sustained upward trend in the rates of ILI over the past 6-8 weeks, particularly in recent weeks, however, overall rates remain well below those observed during the same period in 2009 during the first pandemic wave in the southern hemisphere.


http://www.who.int/csr/don/2010_08_06/en/index.html

No comments: