Rhiza Labs FluTracker Forum

Influenza Specialist Group Chairman Dr Alan Hampson said it had been an "unusual start'' to the season, with cases over the summer months four to five times above average.

South-eastern Australia wakes to a deep freeze
Steve Jacobs
May 16, 2011 - 11:47AM
The temperatures of Sydney's western suburbs fell below freezing today as the run of extremely cold mornings continued across much of south-eastern Australia.

Richmond recorded -1, Alex Zadnik, meteorology team leader at weatherzone.com.au said.

The culprit was a slow-moving high pressure system maintaining clear skies and light winds, Mr Zadnik said.

The tail end of a front passed through Bass Strait overnight, which produced an increase in wind and cloud across Tasmania and southern Victoria, saving these areas from widespread frost, he said.

It was a different story though across South Australia, NSW, Queensland and the ACT.

Canberra dropped below -6 degrees for the second morning in a row, falling to -6.5 at 5am. There have now been 10 sub-zero mornings this month, which is two more than average.

The NSW tablelands also felt the chill this morning. Goulburn airport hit -8 for the second time in a week, while Orange and Mudgee both slipped to about -6. For Mudgee, this was the coldest May morning in 14 years of records and 10 below average.

Frost was also experienced in South Australia, with Renmark and Loxton both dipping below zero.

Stanthorpe in Queensland fell to -2, while Rutherglen in north-east Victoria also hit -2.

Frosty conditions are again likely over the next two mornings, before a gradual warming trend late in the week, Mr Zadnik said.

Over the last month, there have been various news reports about bad flu in Queensland in northern Australia.

From memory, the rate is much higher than last year (some reports 4 times, some 50% higher) and some mentioned it was more severe.

Interesting that there appears to be matching news stories (which don't mention any mutation/changes) and now released sequences. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7225

In addition, from memory, there have been Oz sequences which had some of the UK nasties. And vax rates among children are up to 80% lower due to fears generated over previous dodgy batches and side effects.

A lot of nasty planets are lining for Australia this winter. I wonder whether it will come earlier like 2009 or later July/August/September like 2008 and 2007?

I agree that the planets are lining up for Australia. The sub-clade with NA S246N is a major issue. It really began to take off in Europe in early 2011. When the sub-clades with S186P and S188T were spreading from teh UK anotehr subclade began to appear. Initial sequences were from Sweden, but then more sequences appeared in Iraq and Iran. These sequences had D100N, R208K, I219V, and V252L. More recently there were many sequneces from Italy with a few additional changes.

This same sub-clade started circulating in Singapore in late 2010 and the appeared in Ausralia in early 2011. However, these had S246N and clonally expanded.

The "moderate" Tamiflu resistance can create a significant clinical problem, because sub-optimal dosing of Tamiflu leads to additional resistance, like H274Y which is circulating widely as a mixture (but not reported becaause it is below 50%).

The combination leads to cases with S246N and H274Y, as seen in the fatal Perth case descibed in the Eurosurveillance report.

The upcoming season in Australia may be VERY messy.