Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 28, 1993 TAG: 9305280010
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A12 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Medium
"Even though you were exposed to similar strains in the past, you might not be so able to defend yourself against this new one," Dr. Lone Simonsen of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
"It's very important to get the vaccine next fall."
The CDC reported Thursday that the newest bug emerged very late in the 1992-93 flu season, killing the elderly and infecting people into May - two months after influenza usually abates.
The milder Type B flu dominated, accounting for 73 percent of cases between Sept. 27 and May 15.
But in February, the harsher Type A flu began an upsurge, causing outbreaks in nursing homes along the East Coast. Hardest hit were a home in north Georgia, where 100 people became sick in April and several died, and another in New York, for which the CDC couldn't provide exact figures.
Most of these cases were a Type A strain called Beijing flu, clinically known as A-H3N2. It's the deadliest strain of flu, and it dominated the 1991-92 U.S. flu epidemic.
But this spring, the agency detected a change in the genetic makeup of the Beijing virus. It mutated so that it was genetically different from the protection incorporated into last year's flu vaccine, meaning even vaccinated people were falling ill.
That mutation also meant that people who had been exposed to Beijing flu in recent years and had developed some natural immunity now were vulnerable.
"Influenza has a very high mutation rate," Simonsen said. "When the changes happen . . . you don't have enough immunity to send off an infection."
The CDC calls this new flu variant A-Beijing-32-92.
by CNB