Influenza Evolution and H3N2 Vaccine Effectiveness, with Application to the 2014/2015 Season

TL;DR

This paper discusses a method to predict influenza strain dominance and vaccine effectiveness, applying it to the 2014/2015 season, and analyzes the emergence of new influenza clusters using multidimensional scaling.

Contribution

It introduces the $p_{ m epitope}$ method for predicting influenza vaccine effectiveness and strain evolution, with application to recent flu season data.

Findings

Estimated vaccine effectiveness against emerging strains

Identification of a new immunologically distinct influenza cluster

Application of multidimensional scaling to influenza data

Abstract

Influenza A is a serious disease that causes significant morbidity and mortality, and vaccines against the seasonal influenza disease are of variable effectiveness. In this paper, we discuss use of the $p_{\rm epitope}$ method to predict the dominant influenza strain and the expected vaccine effectiveness in the coming flu season. We illustrate how the effectiveness of the 2014/2015 A/Texas/50/2012 [clade 3C.1] vaccine against the A/California/02/2014 [clade 3C.3a] strain that emerged in the population can be estimated via pepitope. In addition, we show by a multidimensional scaling analysis of data collected through 2014, the emergence of a new A/New Mexico/11/2014-like cluster [clade 3C.2a] that is immunologically distinct from the A/California/02/2014-like strains.