At a press conference held by the National Health Commission on January 1, Wang Dayan, director of the National Influenza Center of the Institute of Viral Diseases of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, introduced that China's southern provinces have entered the influenza epidemic season since early October 14 and northern provinces since late October 2023, with the H10N2023 subtype influenza virus as the main epidemic strain in the early stage, and the proportion of influenza B virus in southern provinces has continued to rise to 10.3% in the past three weeks In the past five weeks, the proportion of influenza B virus in northern provinces has continued to rise to 2.3%, and the proportion of influenza B virus in some provinces has exceeded that of influenza A virus.
Mi Feng, spokesman of the National Health Commission, said that since New Year's Day, the number of fever clinics in medical institutions across the country has shown a fluctuating downward trend, and the current respiratory diseases are still dominated by influenza, the new coronavirus infection is at a low level, and medical services are generally stable and orderly. Wang Dayan said that after the New Year's Day holiday this year, the positive rate of new coronavirus tests in China's sentinel hospitals remained below 1%, and the proportion of JN.1 variants showed an upward trend. Experts believe that this winter and spring China will continue to show a variety of respiratory pathogens alternately or jointly epidemic situation, and influenza viruses will still be the main in the short term.
"The immune response to influenza A does not provide effective immune protection against influenza B, which means that even if you have had influenza A this season, you may still be infected with influenza B again. Wang Dayan said that influenza A and B viruses are distinguished by the genetic and protein sequence characteristics of the virus, and the seasonal influenza caused by them is difficult to distinguish in clinical symptoms. Differentiation and identification are performed by pathogenic typing tests, such as nucleic acid tests and antigen tests.
Wang Guiqiang, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peking University First Hospital, pointed out that the immunity established by these pathogens after infection is not long-lasting, and can be repeatedly infected. At the same time, these pathogens do not have cross-protective immunity and can be infected simultaneously or alternately.
Wang Guiqiang said that for repeated infection in a short period of time, because the immunity established by infection still exists, the same pathogen is relatively mild after reinfection, but infection with different pathogens may aggravate or worsen the condition, especially easy to lead to upper respiratory tract mucosal barrier damage and trigger bacterial infection.
"In this case, we need to pay close attention to susceptible people, vulnerable people, especially the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions, as well as infants and young children. Wang Guiqiang suggested that personal protection should be done, if there are symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection, the pathogen should be diagnosed in time, and targeted treatment, such as influenza can be used oseltamivir or mabaloxavir and other anti-influenza virus drugs, the elderly, children and patients with underlying diseases should use anti-influenza drugs as early as possible. In the case of new coronavirus infection, anti-new crown drugs should be used early to relieve symptoms, shorten the duration of the disease, reduce the risk of severe disease and hospitalization, and reduce the risk of further transmission.
Source: China Youth Daily