31 May 2002 - Canada - PPHB
Infectious Diseases News Brief - Influenza: Canada -[Link no longer applicable.] During the period of 26 August 2001 - 4 May 2002, Health Canada has received 49,461 reports of laboratory tests for influenza: 5,801 (12.2%) were positive for influenza A and 785 were positive for influenza B. The National Microbiology Laboratory antigenically characterized 452 influenza isolates to date this season: 310 were A(H3N2); 18 were A(H1); 124 were influenza B. Of the 18 A(H1) isolates identified antigenically, 17 were characterized by genetic analysis to be a new influenza A(H1N2) strain. The H1N2 strains were identified from specimens taken since December 2001 from patients in Alberta (seven), Saskatchewan (eight) and Manitoba (two). Source: Health Canada - Public and Public Health Branch (PPHB)

03 June 2002
The following reconstituted graphic shows the total numbers of WHO FluNet - [No longer available.] specimens analyzed in the United States during the periods of Jan - May 2001 and Jan - May 2002. It can be seen that there was, in fact, low level but significant flu related/suspected activity during the month of May (and probably carrying over into June) of 2001.
Was: http://oms2.b3e.jussieu.fr/flunet/activity.html - There may be a new link.

WHO Published weekly summaries are curtailed at the end of week 20.

Copies of the WHO FluNet monthly graphs used in the preparation of the above summaries may be viewed by clicking on the following links.

08 June 2002 - United States - New Jersey
Mystery Rash Surfaces at South Jersey High School - About 80 students at Gateway Regional High School have exhibited a red blotchy rash. Rash disappears soon after students leave the school.   Source: (AP) (Woodbury Heights, N.J.) - www.kyw.com/Top Stories, Courtesy of the Drudge Report.
Was: http://kyw.com/news/StoryFolder/story_1630778394_html

This writer chooses to see a possible geographical and/or timing relation between the recent school rash outbreaks and influenza. (This is meant to imply that influenza may be part of a package deal in which a spectrum of bad bugs, bacteria, viruses, etc., make concerted/associated appearances.

This is getting out on a limb, but there may be some architectural or heating/cooling system similarities (in principle) between the buildings where student school rash outbreaks have occurred (students have to be in/or near the structures for the rashes to appear) and the buildings where outbreaks of legionnaires' disease have occurred. (For example: open air water cooling towers.) This does not imply that the same factors are involved, rather that for the school rashes there may be some common factors, as there have been found for the legionnaires disease locales. See the article: "The Spread of Respiratory Disease in Office Buildings" - [Link no longer works.] Aerobiological Engineering - Pennsylvania State University - Graduate School of Architectural Engineering & Department of Biology.

The presumption, here, is that the bad bugs are being delivered by "air mail." (Sender's address is presently ambiguous.) Although not documented yet in these web pages, there seems to be a remarkable correlation between Venus inferior conjunctions and the onsets of new waves of legionnaires' disease which occur about 30-60 days later.. Add new outbreaks of West Nile Virus, St. Louis Encephalitis, and Equine Encephalitis to the list.

Material on West Nile Virus was moved to a new section on 20 August 2002.

8 June 2002 - Australia
Lack of influenza A(H1) in Australia so far this winter - Interestingly, during the winter of 2002 in Australia to date, there have been no isolates of the influenza A(H1) subtype. The last time this was recorded in Australia was in the period 1996-1998 when no influenza A(H1) strains were isolated. The reason for these fluctuations in influenza A subtype are not fully understood but are probably due to a number of factors such as the lower rate of antigenic change seen with this subtype of influenza compared to the A(H3) subtype. Source: WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference & Research on Influenza - Melbourne, Australia. - (Added to page on 16 August 2002) [Site shows info for current flu seasons.]

12 June 2002 - CDC National Center for Infectious Disease
Influenza A(H1N2) Viruses Identified [2002 report may be somewhere on this site.]
On February 6, 2002, World Health Organization (WHO) and the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) in the United Kingdom reported the recent identification of a new influenza virus strain, influenza A(H1N2), isolated from humans in England, Israel, and Egypt. In addition to the viruses reported by PHLS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified influenza A(H1N2) virus from patient specimens collected during July 2001 through April 2002 in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. Influenza A(H1N2) viruses have been identified in the past. Between December 1988 and March 1989, 19 influenza A(H1N2) viruses were identified in 6 cities in China, but the virus did not spread further. [Underlined locales are newly announced.]

As of this date (7 July 2002) this writer has no information regarding the dates or numbers of cases for New York, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. For a news item possibly related to the appearance of H1N2 in Hawaii, see the 2 August 2001 entry on the Global Developments: Spring - Summer 2001, Part II.

30 August 2002 -Influenza: Canada (Update)
The National Microbiology Laboratory has antigenically characterized 553 influenza isolates from 30 September 2001 to 10 August 2002 of the following subtypes: 333 A(H3N2); 72 A(H1N2); one A(H1N1); 147 influenza B. The 72 A(H1N2) isolates were antigenically characterized by genetic analysis and determined to be a new influenza A(H1N2) strain. ...Of the influenza B viruses characterized to date, five are B/Sichuan/379/99-like and 142 are B/Hong Kong/22/01-like. ... The B/Hong Kong/22/01-like viruses belong to another lineage of influenza viruses, the B/Victoria/02/87 lineage, which last circulated in Canada in the 1988-1989 season. [Emphasis added.]
Source: FluWatch, 28 July to 10 August 2002 (Week 31 and 32), Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control; National Microbiology Laboratory, Health Canada.

The Canadian statistics do not support the idea of A(H1N1) and A(H3N2) reassorting to produce A(H1N2). (See the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 histograms for the USA above.) Also, it appears that the new A(H1N2) virus and the surprise drop-in of B/Hong Kong/22/01 virus each exercised something like a territorial imperative with respect to their assumed competitors.

Influenza A(H1N2) Viruses - Questions and Answers - Florida Department of Health.

New Clues to Deadly Flus - ScienceNow - 6 Sep 2001

Qi Junlin, WANG Min, DONG Jie, et al., http://www.37c.com.cn/literature/analecta/data/zhsyhlcbdxzz/200001/008.html Study on the origin of influenza A(H1N2) virus HA and NA genes - [No longer available.] - Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, Beijing 100052. (Publication year is 1995 or later.)

(1a) Xiyan Xu, Catherine B. Smith, Bruce A. Mungall, Stephen E. Lindstrom, Henrietta E. Hall, Kanta Subbarao, Nancy J. Cox, and Alexander Klimov. "Intercontinental Circulation of Human Influenza A(H1N2) Reassortant Viruses during the 2001-2002 Influenza Season," - - Concise Communication, Influenza Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta Georgia. - The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2002;186:1490-1493. [Added 4 April 2005. Thanks to the researcher in Pune, Marshtra, India, for searching Google.com for "Bruce Mungall" today.]