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There ’s been so picayune flu transmission during the COVID-19pandemicthat some types of influenza viruses may have blend in extinct , according to news show report .
During the COVID-19pandemic , flu casesdropped to historic lows — a phenomenon expert attribute to mask wear and other guard to combat the novelcoronavirus .
Interestingly , two type of influenza viruses have n’t shown up on anyone ’s radar for a year , meaning there have been no reported case of these viruses anywhere in the cosmos , STAT reported . Experts do n’t yet know if these types have gone nonextant , but if so , officials could have an loose time picking the strains of influenza viruses included in the seasonalflu shot , STAT reported .
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To explain which grippe viruses may have gone extinct , it helps to understand how flu viruses are assort . Two menage of flu viruses cause seasonal influenza : influenza A and influenza B. Influenza A viruses are divided into " subtypes " based on two proteins on their open known as hemagglutinin ( H ) and neuraminidase ( N),according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC ) . presently , H1N1 and H3N2 circulate in people , and each of these subtypes is further broken down into " clades . "
Influenza B viruses , on the other hand , do n’t have subtypes or clades but are part into two lineages known as B / Yamagata and B / Victoria .
One clade of H3N2 , know as 3c3.A , has n’t been detected since March 2020 . The same is true of the linage B / Yamagata , according to STAT .
" I think it has a comely luck that it ’s gone . But the universe ’s a cock-a-hoop place , " Trevor Bedford , a computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle , told STAT , refer to the H3N2 clade .
Florian Krammer , a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine Mount Sinai in New York , share similar opinion about the B / Yamagata linage . " Just because nobody saw it does n’t intend it has disappeared completely , right ? But it could " have evaporate , Krammer told STAT .
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Less multifariousness among flu virus would be a in effect matter . Each year , scientist make the flu vaccine months before flu season actually starts by seeing what strains are circulate in the Earth and then predicting which grippe strain are potential to be the most plebeian during the upcoming season . Lower flu virus diversity imply a little consortium of circulating viruses to choose from and a greater probability that the strain in the shot will match those circulating .
H3N2 viruses are a particularly diverse group , and prior to the COVID-19 pandemic , their clades seemed to be getting more genetically divers each yr , grant to STAT . So a drop in diverseness for this subtype would be a " great thing , " Richard Webby , manager of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds , based at St. Jude Children ’s Hospital in Memphis , evidence STAT . " Currently , when we sit down down to make recommendations for vaccine strains , it ’s always the ' headache ' virus . "
Webby admonish that these virus types might still be out there even if they have n’t been reported in official databases . But the striking drib in flu cases this year is likely to add some changes for influenza .
" Without doubt , this is definitely going to convert something in terms of the diversity of flu viruses out there , " Webby tell STAT . " The extent to which it deepen and how long it stays change are the big interrogation marks . But we have never seen this before . "
Originally published on Live Science .
