Australia Just Had a Bad Flu Season. That May Be a Warning for the U.S.

Re:Australia Just Had a Bad Flu Season. That May Be a Warnin... by nness on Saturday October 05, 2019 @07:41PM (#21168727)

I seem to recall that Australia's 2017 flu-season was particularly rough, in large part, because the strains that were chosen for vaccination mutated after the vaccinations were produced.

(I wouldn't be surpirsed if the "anti-vaccination" rhetoric, which was playing-up a lot in those years, might've also mis-informed some families about the benefits of flu vaccination.)

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Re:Australia Just Had a Bad Flu Season. That May Be a Warnin... by sturadnidge on Saturday October 05, 2019 @08:39PM (#21168981)

It was the same this year, there were reports in the media questioning the efficacy of the 2019 vaccination due to mutation.

Anecdotally, there did seem to be a very large number of sick people around this year (even now, in spring) although I’m sure 99% of the cases weren’t flu proper.

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Re:Australia Just Had a Bad Flu Season. That May Be a Warnin... by jazoom on Sunday October 06, 2019 @07:01AM (#21171228)

I probably did over a hundred swabs on my patients. I'd say the most common was rhinovirus, then RSV and influenza A, then about 4 other viruses made up the rest. It was certainly more than 1% influenza A. There was a decent amount of influenza B too after a while. Parainfluenza came up strong later in the season.

I got sick 3 or 4 times. I got the flu vaccination a couple of months before all this really took off. I guess that confirms the flu vaccine caused me to get sick (sarcasm).

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Re:Australia Just Had a Bad Flu Season. That May Be a Warnin... by DrScump on Saturday October 05, 2019 @11:35PM (#21169664)

mutated? Or were the wrong strains simply chosen for the vaccine due to poor predictions?

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