WHO says flu vaccines should ditch strain that vanished during COVID
Huh, so pesky cold B/Yamagata supposedly went extinct because of lockdowns. But...
A paper from ONE year ago by Euro Surveillance:
Quote:The B/Yamagata detection results from FluNet are important but caution is currently needed in their interpretation as the sporadic B/Yamagata detections could be vaccine-derived. They could be linked to the presence of live-attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) preparations in the environment or RNA from traditional inactivated vaccines if they were administered in the same room where specimens are also collected from patients [16,17].
Indeed, a number of B/Yamagata detections in Scotland and the United States during the 2021/22 season were confirmed as being linked to LAIV [18,19]. Another important point is that if the B/Yamagata lineage does become extinct, there is the potential of a later re-introduction of this influenza virus lineage (as has happened in the past, e.g. the re-emergence of influenza A(H1N1) in 1977) and this lineage could still pose a risk in the coming years [1].
...
Conclusion
Influenza B/Yamagata is being closely monitored by WHO GISRS NICs and the WHO Collaborating Centres for influenza. We think it would be advisable to also establish a dedicated multi-disciplinary working group (virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists, modellers, policymakers, experts from GISRS and industry), under the auspices of the WHO, that publishes and communicates criteria to define the moment when B/Yamagata is declared extinct (e.g. 24 months of no new wild-type cases), the data that should be collected (e.g. epidemiological data to define wild-type cases) and the consequences of this declaration (e.g. vaccine composition).
Has influenza B/Yamagata become extinct and what implications might this have for quadrivalent influenza vaccines?
“World War III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation.” — Marshall McLuhan, from Culture Is Our Business, 1970