“The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) flu vaccine advisory group today recommended changing one strain—the 2009 H1N1 component—for the Northern Hemisphere’s 2017-18 flu season……Also, the advisors reviewed the latest genetic information about recent avian and other zoonotic flu viruses and recommended two new candidate vaccine viruses for H7N9 avian flu, plus three new ones for other potential pandemic threats….”
March 3rd, 2017“…..The WHO recommends the following for the Northern Hemisphere’s trivalent vaccines:
- For H1N1, an A/Michigan/45/2015-like virus
- For H3N2, an A/Hong Hong/4801/2014-like virus
- For B, Brisbane/60/2008-like virus (belonging to the Victoria lineage)
For quadrivalent versions that contain two influenza B strains, the WHO experts recommended adding Phuket/3073/2013-like virus, a Yamagata lineage virus that is the second B component of quadrivalent vaccines for both the Southern Hemisphere’s past and the Northern Hemisphere’s current season….”
“…..Today the group said that recent H7N9 viruses fall into the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) or Pearl River Delta (PRD) hemagglutinin lineages, and that two existing candidate vaccine viruses don’t seem to protect against recent YRD-lineage viruses. They proposed a new candidate vaccine virus to protect against those viruses.
Also, they said the newly identified highly pathogenic H7N9 viruses isolated from poultry and people are genetically and antigenically distinct from other H7N9 viruses, including recommended candidate strain, including the newly proposed one. Therefore, the group recommended a new candidate vaccine virus to protect against the highly pathogenic H7N9 strain.
The group also recommended three other candidate pandemic vaccine viruses, two against recent variant H1N1 strains and one against the recent H5N6 virus circulating in Japan and South Korea……”
