The flu season is now fully underway, and Dr. James Conway, professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, is worried that this year will be a challenging one. That’s in part because a new strain of the virus called the “K subclade,” is circulating and people may not have the immunity to easily fight it off.
“We’re looking at another bad season. Last year was pretty brisk … But this one really seems to be picking up,” Conway told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “This new K clade of the H3N2 influenza A is really kind of a novel and really rapidly expanding virus, and so we’re seeing a lot of disease related to that particular strain.”