Dr. Arnold Monto, of the University of Michigan, notes H3N2 viruses are still circulating in pockets of Southeast Asia and in the tropics. He won't venture to guess whether they will die out there too, or if those regions will serve as a reservoir for resurgent H3N2 activity.
"Flu is un-pre-dict-able," he says, stringing out the word for emphasis.
Dr. Nancy Cox isn't convinced H3N2 is going away. But the head of the influenza division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control would be happy with a one-for-one exchange, with the pandemic H1N1 replacing the seasonal virus of the same name.
That's because seasonal H1N1 viruses are resistant to oseltamivir (Tamiflu), the main drug used to fight flu.
The pandemic H1N1 viruses are susceptible to Tamiflu, though they are resistant to two older flu drugs, amantadine and rimantadine. Those two drugs aren't widely used anymore because resistance to them develops easily.
Swapping viruses that are immune to Tamiflu for ones the drug works against would be a bargain, Cox suggests. "Getting rid of resistance in circulating H1N1 viruses would be a real silver lining."
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