A leading autoimmune disease expert said the flu could be “non-existent this fall” as the US moves into the colder months as it continues to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
“We may not have the flu at all, but we should all get vaccinated,” Dr. Bob Lahita, chairman of the Department of Medicine at St. Joseph Health System, told CBSN presenter Anne-Marie Green.
The World Health Organization estimates that there are approximately 3-5 million severe people each year. flu cases worldwide and up to 500,000 annual deaths related to the disease.
The United States, the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis, has seen more than 150,000 coronavirus-related deaths and more than 4 million confirmed cases since March. Medical experts have been concerned about what the growing number of cases could mean when students return to school and the annual flu season begins.
A former United States health official, Dr. Rick Bright, testified in a Hearing in Congress that the country could face the “darkest winter in modern history” if the pandemic is not controlled.
However, efforts to mitigate the coronavirus may pay off in other ways.
Countries such as China, Canada and the United Kingdom recently reported a significant drop in influenza cases after global social distancing measures to contain the coronavirus, according to a Reuters report.
The report also states that South Korea’s most recent weekly infectious disease numbers saw “an 83% decrease in cases from the same period last year.” In Australia, which is currently in winter, experts are seeing significantly lower rates of hospital admissions for non-COVID-19 infectious diseases for the time of year. However, the WHO warned in a recent report that influenza numbers must be viewed with “caution” due to the pandemic hampering the reporting capacity of some countries.
Dr. Lahita predicted a similar decline in influenza cases in the US “Due to the use of masks, hand washing, and social distancing.”
“I think it will be very interesting to see this,” he said.
Some experts fear that a lack of flu infections this year could negatively affect immunity in future flu seasons.
“It may be that if we don’t have infections this season there will be more vulnerable people next season, that is definitely something that we will have to carefully monitor,” said Ben Marais, an infectious disease expert at the University of Sydney. Reuters
According to Dr. Lahita, the issue of immunity for both the coronavirus and the flu may have a simple solution in the future, once a vaccine is developed.
“I think the new coronavirus will be with us for many, many years,” he said. “However, there is hope that in 2021, for example, we will have both vaccines combined together, so that when you are vaccinated against the flu you will be vaccinated against COVID-19.”
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