The CDC confirmed the birth of a new influenza virus in this week’s MMWR Weekly Report. The newborn is named “Swine-origin Triple Reassortant Influenza A (H3N2) (S-OtrH3N2)”. The hybrid virus was found in a handful of school-age kids in Iowa recently- and luckily the kids recovered and none were hospitalized. Nobody outside the initial cluster has been infected (a good thing) meaning it doesn’t look like the new virus is very good at moving person to person (yet). The scientists think that the new virus is a new re-assortment of the RNA among the run-of-the-mill H3N2 and the 2009 H1H1 pandemic strains. The latest details are in this week’s CDC’s Weekly Report. All you virophiles can find a representation of the virus’s RNA on this special CDC website.
Is this a new pandemic, you ask? Probably not.
