I now seem to be recovering from a heavyweight bout with this year’s flu; I’ve lost most of the last 10 days and still have a sore throat and cough, so I’m not yet out of the woods. This is despite having had my flu jab last autumn.

But we know that this year’s vaccine hasn’t been as effective as usual. That’s for two reasons, both (this year) relating mostly to the nasty A-H3N2 virus:
(a) The virus for the vaccine is picked some 9 months in advance because it takes that long to manufacture the vaccine. (So the stains for next winter’s flu jab have probably already been fixed and production started.) In the meantime the strain circulating in the wild may well have mutated, meaning the vaccine isn’t fully effective.
(b) Researchers have recently realised that the virus can also mutate during the production process, so even if what’s circulating in the wild remains fixed again the vaccine isn’t a perfect match.
That is bad news because not only does it look as if both are happening, but A-H3N2 is an especially nasty flu strain; in years where it is circulating there is always an up-tick in cases. H3N2 is the so-called Aussie flu as it is what was circulating in the Antipodes during their last winter (our summer).

Because of the way in which flu works, each year’s vaccine contains three or four different strains. Usually two Influenza-A strains (this year an H1N1 and H3N2) and one or two Influsenza-B strains (this year a B/Brisbane strain in the normal trivalent vaccine, with the quadrivalent vaccine adding a B/Phuket strain). B strains are generally less common and less virulent; A strains can be very nasty viruses, especially for the elderly and those with co-morbidities (like diabetes and COPD).

That’s a very simplified explanation of flu and what’s happening; there’s a very full explanation on Wikipedia. And it is really an aside. What I came here today to tell you about is Flusurvey.

Flusurvey is an online system for measuring influenza trends; it is owned by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Public Health England. The UK Flusurvey was launched in July 2009 during the swine flu epidemic and is part of a Europe-wide initiative to monitor influenza-like activity and understand how epidemics spread. Flusurvey collects data directly from the general public (rather than via hospitals or GPs) during the flu season (so roughly October to April). This is important because many people with flu don’t visit a doctor so wouldn’t otherwise feature in traditional flu surveillance.

Anyone who lives in the UK can register to take part. When you register you are asked to complete a short profile of general questions about yourself and your flu risk factors (eg. age, vaccination status). Then each week you’ll be asked to report any flu-like symptoms experienced since your last visit – and you’ll get to see a map of reported flu in your area (by postcode area – the first 3 or 4 characters of your postcode). Participation is entirely voluntary and information is collected for research purposes only; all analysis is carried out on anonymous datasets.

Of course, if you’re sad, like me, you can look at the map, and pages of graphs and statistics, at any time to see where the hotspots are: looking as I write this I see that my area of west London is currently quite warm as are Ilford, SE Wales and the Harrogate area of Yorkshire. I can also see that there was a massive spike in flu cases starting at Christmas and lasting about 4 weeks; so the worst now looks to be over at least taking the country as a whole.

Currently Flusurvey has over 4000 registered participants with about 2500 reporting in each week – which is heavily weighted towards London and the South-East.

I have been completing Flusurvey each week for a number of years and given that it normally takes 2 minutes a week it is a quick, painless and free way of contributing to ongoing research. So if you have half an ounce of altruism, or are just generally nosy about what’s going on, it is worth signing up. If you sign up now, then you will be included in the remainder of this year’s survey and will be in pole position when Flusurvey starts up again next autumn.