Scientists are sounding the alarm: this winter’s upcoming flu season in North America could be a real nightmare, thanks to the rapid arrival of a variant that doesn’t match well with the seasonal flu vaccine.

Health officials in Canada issued the warning in a paper late last month. An unexpected variant of the H3N2 flu, dubbed subclade K, quickly emerged during the tail end of the flu season in the Southern Hemisphere this year, they noted. Subclade K is now poised to become one of the most dominant variants of the flu season in the U.S. and Canada, and it’s likely that our vaccines will be less effective overall this winter against the flu than experts had predicted.

“While mismatched vaccines can still provide protection against circulating variants, enhanced surveillance is warranted,

See Full Page