SA 'in for a bad flu season'

Van Aswegen suggested that because the flu virus was more difficult to transmit during mild weather conditions because it died faster in warmer air, if fewer people had flu the one year, more people could possibly be susceptible to contracting it the next season leading to a harsher flu season.

Van Aswegen suggested that because the flu virus was more difficult to transmit during mild weather conditions because it died faster in warmer air, if fewer people had flu the one year, more people could possibly be susceptible to contracting it the next season leading to a harsher flu season.

Published Jun 19, 2015

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Cape Town - South Africa needs to brace for a harsh cold and flu season.

So says Mariska van Aswegen of pharmaceutical company Pharma Dynamics.

 

She said research conducted at the University of Arizona had “found a significant association between warm winters and severe colds and flu seasons that follow”.

“As the earth’s average temperature continues to rise, SA’s winters are starting to become warmer too,” Van Aswegen said, noting warnings from experts who have issued warnings on how climate change could bring on more severe flu and cold outbreaks.

This warning she said, had taken into account the effects of climate changes on birds’ migratory paths which may be related to avian flu, and changing La Niña conditions in which warmer currents may be a contributory factor as birds and animals that were not usually found together were mixed, increasing simultaneous multiple infections of hosts and seeing different flu genes mutate into new combinations.

Van Aswegen said that preliminary data gathered from 20 selected weather stations distributed across South Africa had indicated that 2014 was the 10th warmest year in the country since 1961. This, she said, meant that the country’s mean temperature has increased by about 0.13 °C per decade.

What is interesting about the study, van Aswegen pointed out, is that “researchers examined government data for each flu season over the past 15 years and found that when a winter had above average temperatures, cold and flu strains were more aggressive 72 percent of the time in the winter that followed”.

Van Aswegen mentioned how it was once thought that global warming would result in less deaths caused by respiratory-related infections during the colder months, but new research seemed to indicate otherwise.

Van Aswegen suggested that because the flu virus was more difficult to transmit during mild weather conditions because it died faster in warmer air, if fewer people had flu the one year, more people could possibly be susceptible to contracting it the next season leading to a harsher flu season.

She said that researchers had also noticed an early onset of the two main types of flu that caused seasonal epidemics, namely influenza A (H1N1) and B (H3N2).

Van Aswegen added that medical schemes had indicated that the cold and flu season had started earlier than usual this year. Instead of starting in the first week of June, people had contracted colds and the flu as early as May, and as a result, the schemes have received a higher number of claims for cold and flu related illnesses.

Van Aswegen advised people, especially the elderly, young children and pregnant women who were more vulnerable to the flu virus, to take additional immune boosting supplements and to get the flu vaccine to avoid cold and flu related complications.

ANA

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