The B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) is trying to get ahead of this year’s flu season after the difficult one last year.
Each season the flu shot has to be updated to match the new strains that are most likely to make people sick. The centre says last year, influenza got off to an early start and was made more difficult partly due to the vaccine mismatch. In B.C., that translated into the highest number of care facility outbreaks in more than a decade.
“A changed strain of H3N2 virus that didn’t match the vaccine caused most of the influenza illness last winter,” says Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an influenza expert at BCCDC, in a release. “H3N2 viruses tend to cause more illness, especially in older people, which is why it is so important to monitor this virus closely every year.”
In 2004, Skowronski’s team pioneered a study called the ‘test-negative design’ to monitor influenza vaccine effectiveness that is now used in more than 20 countries around the world.
“Last year showed the lowest vaccine effectiveness we have recorded in more than 10 years,” says Skowronski. “The WHO has replaced last year’s H3N2 vaccine with a new one and we want to check that it gives better protection for the coming season. We rely on doctors and nurses in the community who belong to our monitoring network to help with that.”
Throughout September, the BCCDC team will be packaging and sending out hundreds of special swab kits to existing sentinel sites in B.C., but the team is also recruiting more family doctors and nurses to join the network for the coming season. Family practitioners in B.C. who would like to join are asked to contact the BCCDC team at SentinelNetwork@bccdc.ca or 1-888-881-8886.
WATCH: Dr. Danuta Skowronski on the Morning News with Steve Darling and Fiona Forbes:
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