Flu vaccines still useful despite mismatch with WHO recommendations, Hong Kong experts say
Global watchdog suggests use of Singapore strain, while city’s 460,000 doses contain Hong Kong strain
Hong Kong health chiefs and local doctors said on Tuesday that the city’s flu vaccinations should still be effective, despite the shots containing a different strain to the one most recently recommended by the global health watchdog.
The World Health Organisation announced last Thursday that the vaccine strain to be used against influenza A H3N2 for the southern hemisphere next year had been changed to the Singapore strain.
The Hong Kong strain is found in the city’s 460,000 doses of flu vaccine, which will be given out under the government’s vaccination programme beginning this month.
The composition of those vaccines was based on the WHO’s recommendations for the northern hemisphere, which Hong Kong is in, announced in February.
But the WHO’s latest suggestion cites studies that show recent H3N2 viruses, which were predominant globally from February to September this year, had been “better inhibited” by antibodies produced against the Singapore strain, compared with other virus strains.
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The city’s Centre for Health Protection said, however, that no significant mutations in the H3 strain had been detected.
