H3N2 Virus

What’s in today’s article?

• Why in News?
• What is the H3N2 Virus?
• What are the Symptoms/Cure/Preparedness of H3N2?

Why in News?

• India has recorded 2 deaths, one each in Karnataka and Haryana, due to the Influenza A subtype H3N2 virus and around 90 cases of this virus have been reported across the country.

What is the H3N2 Virus?

• Influenza viruses, which cause the infectious disease known as flu, are of four different types: A, B, C and D.
• Influenza A is further classified into different subtypes and one of them is the H3N2.
• According to the USA’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), H3N2 caused the 1968 flu pandemic that led to the death of around one million people globally.
• The strains of the virus have dramatically evolved in the past five decades as people born in the late 1960s and 1970s got infected by it as children.

Image Caption: H3N2 Influenza

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What are the Symptoms/Cure/Preparedness of H3N2?

• Its symptoms are similar to that of any other flu (cough, fever, body ache and headache, sore throat, a runny or stuffy nose and extreme fatigue).
• According to the Indian Medical Association (IMA), an infection caused by H3N2 generally lasts for 5-7 days and usually preys on individuals below the age of 15 years or above 50 years of age.
• Self-hygiene is the best way to thwart the spread of H3N2.
• Oseltamivir, a drug used to treat H1N1, has been recommended by the World Health Organization for the treatment of H3N2 cases as well.
  • The Indian government has made the drug available through the public health system free of cost.
• The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme of the National Centre for Disease Control of India is undertaking a real-time surveillance of cases of influenza-like/severe acute respiratory infections present in health facilities.

Image Caption: H3N2 Cases Rising Across India

Q1) What is the Hong Kong flu?

Also known as the 1968 flu pandemic, its outbreak in 1968 and 1969 killed between one and four million people globally. It is among the deadliest pandemics in history, and was caused by an H3N2 strain of the Influenza A virus.

Q2) What is the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP)?

It was launched by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare in 2004 to strengthen/maintain decentralised laboratory based IT enabled disease surveillance systems for epidemic prone diseases.

Source: Influenza virus kills 2, Centre issues advisory | IE | TH

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w_NO6CcNXE