Although H1N1 cases have waned across much of the U.S., there has been an uptick in the number of reported cases in the Southeast since October, according to new information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This point was emphasized in last week's Global Health lecture at Duke by CDC flu expert Tim Uyeki, who said it's unclear whether this increase could lead to a third wave of the flu.

Dozens of Duke students and faculty attended Uyeki's lecture on recent developments of the H1N1 influenza pandemic.

Uyeki is the Deputy Chief for Science in the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the CDC's Influenza Division, and he has worked on influenza for the past 12 years. In his lecture "Pandemic Influenza: 2009 H1N1 and Beyond," he emphasized that "the pandemic is not over," as there are reports of more cases in the US, and there are still many unanswered questions about the novel strain of the flu. These unanswered questions include: How accurate are estimates of disease burden in the US and outside of industrialized nations, where medical technologies are not readily available and surveillance programs are not as robust? When will the virus mutate into a new strain? Will there be a third wave of H1N1?

It has been almost one year since the first wave of the H1N1 flu began, in which CDC data shows a total of 16,800 lab-confirmed fatal cases of H1N1 in 213 countries, far fewer fatalities than the flu pandemics of 1918, 1957 and 1968. An independent committee plans to review the WHO's response to H1N1, and whether its classification of pandemic last June was warranted.

 

"People say it is only a mild pandemic," said Uyeki. "But, I would say that we don't know the denominator, how many people have really been affected by H1N1? While it's not severe on a large scale across entire populations, it raises concerns because young people are dying, which is unusual." 

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