Influenza for Dummies: what to know about the 2019-2020 flu

Fundamental to understanding the flu and its impact is the role of embracing the unknown. While you might not associate guess-work with vaccine development, the influenza is an unpredictable entity that requires a unique type of problem solving. Due to a phenomena known as antigenic drift, the influenza virus undergoes small changes over time. For the flu viruses themselves, this is great news seeing as these adaptive mutations create a new type of virus that the body’s immune system cannot recognize. And, as these changes continuously accumulate, vaccinations must be created in an anticipatory manner, using past flu strains as a framework to predict the next wave of influenza.

The Center of Disease Control (CDC) suits up every year to understand and hopefully fight the influenza in the best way possible by looking at the infected. These clinical laboratories have spent the flu season, from September to now, looking at the two specific strains of the virus that are having an impact on the population. As of now, the CDC explains that Influenza B has been the most commonly reported influenza virus this year, for both children and adults under the age of 25.

The most significant changes separating this flu season from others is the increase in Influenza B/Victoria virus, one of the two specific subtypes of Influenza B. The CDC also reports that the influenza activity has been in an elevated state for 13 weeks now, with its largest impact on the health of children. To prevent children from having and transmitting the flu, vaccinations for pediatrics have expanded in age availability for this flu season. These new age restrictions offer three different vaccination types for children 6 months or older, 2 years or older, or 4 years or older, allowing younger children to receive different vaccinations to reduce the severity of the flu and the potential to transmit the flu to other ages. Although the efficacy of the flu vaccine cannot be fully evaluated yet, the high rates of infection and the nature of Influenza B can serve as predictive clues into the flus resistance to the vaccine strains. Specifically, looking into the influenza B subtype mutations that have occurred this season could potentially point toward new influenza B strains against which vaccines and our immune systems are not equipped to fight.