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America faces one of the worst flu seasons ever as doctors warn the vaccine is only 10% effective this year - and infections are already on the rise

* The US will be hit by the H3N2 flu strain this year - the same strain responsible for the biggest outbreaks in recent history
* Australia suffered the worst flu to date this summer due to the H3N2 flu strain
* Experts say the flu vaccine appears to be just 10% effective this year

By Mia De Graaf
Health Editor For Dailymail.com
09:14 EST, 6 December 2017

America is set to endure one of the most perilous flu seasons in years - with doctors warning it could be similar to the deadly 2014 outbreak.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the US will be hit by a particular strain of influenza called H3N2, the same strain which has just wreaked havoc in Australia, and was responsible for the four most deadly flu seasons in the last 10 years.

Early assessments suggest the current vaccine - which was produced in spring after scientists made an educated guess at what strain to expect - will be just 10 percent effective.

While some seasons don't kick off until February, we are already seeing a surge in people hospitalized with influenza-like symptoms - at a rate even faster and earlier than we saw in 2014.

'I'm anticipating this being a bad flu year,' infectious diseases specialist Dr Pritish Tosh, of the Mayo Clinic, told Daily Mail Online.

'Reports from other developed countries suggest suboptimal vaccine efficacy and we are still waiting to see which strain will predominate in the US. But I'm expecting it to be H3N2.'

The four most deadly flu seasons of the last 10 years — in the winters of 2003-2004, 2007-2008, 2012-2013, and 2014-15 — were H3N2 seasons, each with a particular version of that flu type.

Although H3N2 is not as virulent as some other strains of flu, it mutates very easily, making it stronger against the body's immune system.

In 2014, 147 children died of flu - most of them from a particular strain, H3N2. By the end of the year, the CDC declared an epidemic, with more than 20 deaths in just a few weeks before Christmas that year. As health officials rushed to contain the outbreak, the CDC admitted that the 2014 flu vaccine did not protect well against H3N2 - it had just seven percent chance of protection.

This year may not be so different.

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5148911/This-years-flu-set-one-worst-ever.html