H3N2v activity stays low as Indiana reports new case
One more variant H3N2 (H3N2v) has been reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), edging the total so far this year to 16, according to an update today. The newly reported infection is in a patient from Indiana, which has reported all but two of the H3N2v cases reported this year.
All 16 patients had close contact with swine the week before getting sick, and no human-to-human transmission has been reported, the CDC said.
The CDC also noted in its updated H3N2v case count that one patient has been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.
So far the pace of infections with the novel virus is running well behind the same point last year, when 153 cases had been reported. By the end of 2012, 306 infections were reported from 10 states.
Aug 9 CDC weekly flu update
Aug 9 CDC H3N2v case count update
Study: H1N1 infection unlikely to contribute to vaccine-linked narcolepsy
Infection with pandemic 2009 H1N1 (pH1N1) flu did not appear to raise the risk of narcolepsy in Europeans who received the adjuvanted Pandemrix vaccine, which has been linked to narcolepsy in several European nations, according to a study yesterday in PLoS One.
Finnish researchers analyzed sera from 45 patients who developed narcolepsy after receiving the Pandemrix vaccine at the end of 2009, as well as from controls who did not develop the condition. Only 2 of the 45 (4.4%) patients with narcolepsy had specific pH1N1 antibodies.
"Based on our findings, it is unlikely that H1N1pdm09 virus infection contributed to a sudden increase in the incidence of childhood narcolepsy observed in Finland in 2010 after AS03-adjuvanted Pandemrix vaccination," the authors concluded.
Aug 8 PLoS One study
