{"id":6081,"date":"2024-03-13T06:52:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T11:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=6081"},"modified":"2024-03-13T06:52:31","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T11:52:31","slug":"as-covid-spread-a-strain-of-flu-disappeared-now-scientists-say-a-second-could-go-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/03\/13\/as-covid-spread-a-strain-of-flu-disappeared-now-scientists-say-a-second-could-go-too\/","title":{"rendered":"As Covid Spread, a Strain of Flu Disappeared. Now Scientists Say a Second Could Go Too"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bloomberg<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay-at-home orders, border closures, mask-wearing and other measures aimed at stemming Covid-19\u2019s spread led to the global disappearance<\/a> of a notorious winter germ. Now, scientists say it might be feasible with better vaccines to rid the world of a second one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, flu epidemics were driven by four strains. One of them, the so-called Yamagata-lineage of type B influenza, was struggling to compete before the pandemic and hasn\u2019t been seen since March 2020, said Ian Barr<\/a>, deputy director of the World Health Organization\u2019s Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Covid restrictions gave it \u201cthe killer blow which knocked it out,\u201d Barr said in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strain\u2019s disappearance eliminated a viral source of death and disease, especially among children, and a component of annual flu vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also showed that it might be possible going forward to eliminate its type-B<\/a> cousin, a strain known as \u201cVictoria<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike type A influenza, which has a broad\u00a0host range<\/a>\u00a0and risks causing pandemics, B strains lack an animal reservoir and might be more readily snuffed out with better vaccines that not only protect against getting sick, but also prevent transmission, scientists wrote in a\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0last week in the journal\u00a0Lancet Infectious Diseases<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg Stay-at-home orders, border closures, mask-wearing and other measures aimed at stemming Covid-19\u2019s spread led to the global disappearance of a notorious winter germ. Now, scientists say it might be feasible with better vaccines to rid the world of a second one. For decades, flu epidemics were driven by four strains. One of them, the so-called Yamagata-lineage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influenza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6082,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6081\/revisions\/6082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}