Additionally, it incurs a high cost of healthcare- the total impact of an influenza epidemic (total estimated direct and indirect costs) in industrialised countries may reach 56.7 million € per million people3.

4 Influenza has a high incidence of infection and transmission, and particularly debilitating to children and the elderly. Vaccination is the most effective single public health intervention able to dramatically reduce the impact of seasonal influenza. One estimate looking at excess deaths attributed to influenza found that, in milder influenza seasons, there were around 8 deaths per 100,000 population, while in more severe but non-pandemic years, the figure would be 44 per 100,000 3. “Vaccines have saved hundreds of millions of lives over the last century, and influenza has an important place in preventive health care programs. At the same time, there is a constant threat of newly emerging highly virulent pandemic strains. IAV infections remain a serious burden for human health during seasonal outbreaks.

They are further classified based on the subtype of one of the 2 viral surface glycoproteins, the hemagglutinin (H) and the neuraminidase (N).

Of these, type A, and to a lesser extent type B, are clinically important to humans. Based on host tropism and severity of disease, influenza viruses are classified into types A, B, and C. Influenza A virus (IAV) is an Orthomyxovirus carrying a segmented, single-stranded RNA genome.

Victoria 2 accepted culture