Does a new mutated flu exin cause a mild winter?

The flu attacks every winter, but something seems different this year.

A seasonal virus suddenly mutated in the summer; It appears that some of our resistance can be avoided; Does kick start a flu season more than a month early and a type of flu that history suggests is worse.

The NHS is now issuing a “flu jab sos” as fears grow that it could add to a brutal winter.

There’s a lot of excitement and uncertainty, but leading flu experts tell me they wouldn’t be surprised if this is the worst flu season for a decade.

“We haven’t seen a virus like this for a while, these dynamics are unusual,” said Prof NEWOLA Lewis, director of the World Infleenza Center at the Francis Crick Institute.

“I’m thinking about it, absolutely. I’m not panlicking, but I’m worried,” he said.

So what happened? And what can we do?

Scientists track the evolution of flu viruses because they are constantly changing and the seasonal flu vaccine must be renewed every year to keep up.

This evolution occurs in a rhythm known as “Shift and Drift”.

Most of the time the virus circulates making small changes and then every so often there is a sudden shift as the virus mutates greatly.

That happened in June this year.

Seven mutations appeared in a strain of H3N2 Seasonal Flu and led to a “rapid increase in the mutated virus, said Prof Derek Smith, the director of the center of fair in Cambridge.

Unusually, this occurred outside of flu season in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere summer.

“It’s almost certainly going to swallow the world, so from that point, it’s something that’s going to come quickly,” Prof Smith said.

By September, as children go back to school, the nights draw in and the temperatures start to drop, there is an uptick in cases.

It’s true what the mutations do is still being explored, but maybe they help the virus avoid some of the resistance we’ve built up over the years to flu and vaccines.

The result is that the virus is able to infect people more quickly and spread – so the flu season is early in the UK and other countries including Japan.

If the virus can spread quickly then there is no need to wait for better conditions of violence – if we spend more time at home warming up during the flu season.

“We are miles ahead,” said Prof Lewis, “I think it will be a strong flu season”.

If you remember your numbers from the pandemic (that’s the number of people affected by viruses), they suggest a new muant with an edge.

Seasonal flu usually has a figure of about 1.2, while the early estimate for this year is 1.4, said prof lewis.

At that rate, if 100 people have the flu, it will pass 120 in a typical year and 140 this year.

“It is likely to be a bad flu season and it will happen soon, we will be fine,” said priorimo Christope, from the Pandemic Scienche Institute at the University of Oxford.

“There are signs that this is going to be worse than some of the flu seasons we’ve seen in the last 10 years.”

In a typical flu season around one-in-five of us are infected, but that could be higher this year, he warned.

But all these predictions are still shrouded in uncertainty.

Some are looking to Australia for clues because it’s had the worst flu season on record this year, even though it’s not dealing with the same mutated h3n2 that we have.

We know that the virus is very spread among the children in the Germ-fest which is the school playground.

But the immunity of a 10-year-old developed differently from their grandparents whose immune defenses may have been formed six times over several flu seasons.

So, experts will be watching closely as the virus begins to infect older people in the coming weeks.

History suggests that the form of flu we’re dealing with this year will be more severe, especially for the elderly.

There are many types of flu and you may have heard some names like H1N1 SWINE Flu, which caused a pandemic in 2009, or H5n1 which killed birds all over the world.

The fresh mutations occurred in a group of h3n2 influenzas.

“H3 is always a very hot virus, it’s a very bad virus, it’s very susceptible to the population,” Prof Lewis said.

It should be remembered that some of us may have the flu and do not develop symptoms, while others get a sudden fever, body aches, but the virus can be fatal for the elderly and more vulnerable groups.

Last year, nearly 8,000 people died from the flu, and in the 2022-23 flu season there will be nearly 16,000 deaths. The NHS is expecting a tough flu season.

What can we do about it?

The clear advice is to get the seasonal flu vaccine – the NHS in England has issued a “flu jab sos” with 2.4 million vaccine slots available over the next week.

Prof Lewis argues that this is “absolutely the most important year” to get vaccinated and that “if you have been called by your GP, please get your flu vaccine as soon as possible”.

However, this year’s vaccine is not a perfect match for the mutated virus.

The vaccine design decision was made in February to allow enough time to produce the millions of doses needed – and then the new mutant came out in June.

“Some protection is better than no protection, but this year is likely to be one of those years where the amount of protection is less than the years when it’s better, it’s not an ideal situation,” Prof Fraser said.

The vaccine will also stimulate the body to produce antibodies that recognize and fight the flu.

But the biggest benefit is expected to reduce the severity of the disease rather than stopping you from getting sick or slowing the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, doctors are sent advice reminding them of that Early Antiviral Treatment Reduces the risk of complications from the flu.

Japan is also going through an early flu season and has closed schools to help contain outbreaks.

These are not covid-style lockdowns, but short-term measures used by the country to interrupt the spread of the virus.

No one really knows what will happen in the coming months.

“It could all be gone next week, but I don’t think it will,” said Prof Slisis.