With the return of pumpkin spice lattes and cooler temperatures comes another annual rite of passage: flu season.
It’s hard to predict just how hard the influenza will strike Michiganders this year, said Angela Minicuci, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, because “every flu season is different so we can’t really predict how severe or mild a season may be.”
Seasonal flu activity most commonly begins to rear its ugly head as early as October and can continue to make us sniffly and feverish as late as May, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of cases tend to peak nationally from December to February.
And yet, sometimes, flu season gets an earlier start.
Kent County had an outbreak in mid-August among 120 people who attended the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association Conference in Grand Rapids. Several of the people linked to the conference tested positive for an influenza A (H1N1) strain of the virus.
“The best thing that we can do to prepare for this flu season is begin to vaccinate as many people as possible,” Minicuci said. “Flu vaccine is recommended for all people 6 months of age and older.”
But have you ever wondered what’s in the serum that gets poked into your arm each fall?
Because flu viruses are constantly changing, scientists at more than 100 influenza centers around the world work on surveillance, sending their data and samples to the World Health Organization. Those scientists collaborate with other public health experts to determine which strains are most likely to spread during the upcoming season. Vaccines are then developed to target those strains.
This year’s vaccine cocktail includes:
- A/Michigan/45/2015 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus
- A/Singapore/INFIMH-16-0019/2016 A(H3N2)-like virus (updated)
- B/Colorado/06/2017-like (Victoria lineage) virus (updated)
- And some will also have a with fourth strain: B/Phuket/3073/2013-like (Yamagata lineage) virus.
Did you catch “Michigan” in the first strain listed? It’s an H1N1 virus that Minicuci said was first isolated in a lab in Michigan and submitted to the CDC.
University of Michigan scientists in the Influenza Vaccine Evaluation Group lab play a key role in helping public health experts determine which vaccines are most effective and isolate strains of the virus that might be useful in combating the spread of the virus.
“The strain was identified and tested at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with Dr. Arnold Monto’s research team,” Minicuci said. “This is how each strain is named, as to where they are identified.”
The Free Press caught up with Emily Martin, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She works in the lab that first identified the strain. We asked her some questions about what people should know as we head into flu season this year.
Read the Q & A with Emily Martin here.