By Alice McFarlane

Slowing spread of COVID-19 could also lessen the flu this fall

May 27, 2020 | 2:50 PM

Efforts to contain the spread of coronavirus is helping slow the movement of influenza among both people and animals.

The Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) has completed a summary of seasonal influenza over the past two years.

WCVM Associate Professor Dr. Susan Detmer said coronavirus has presented an interesting scenario. She said the main factor that changes what we see in the pig population has to do with what we see in the human population.

“Over the last two years there’s been a lot of the pandemic H1N1 from back in 2009 circulating and this virus over the last decade has changed genetically so we’ve had to update the human vaccine,” Detmer said. “There was a lot of human to pig transmission in 2018 and 2019. That’s when that virus tends to cause a lot of disease issues and dominate what we see in our surveillance.”

As that pandemic started to wane in the fall of 2019, there was a resurgence of the viruses already present on farms.

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“When we have spill over from the human population that virus will dominate,” she said.

Detmer said she tracks virus movement in pigs, but she is also interested to see if current COVID-19 prevention measures will help reduce the spread of other types of influenza.

“With less movement of people, even between the provinces in Canada, we’re actually seeing less disease and less transmission,” Detmer said.

There is still movement of pigs, as a result there are viruses moving with those animals.

“We are seeing it happen with viruses on these farms so they’re not going to just disappear,” Detmer said. “It’s a positive thing. We do expect to see less influenza in people so long as they’re doing their social distancing, they’re not interacting with large groups, they’re not travelling on planes. All of that is going to benefit pigs, hopefully, this fall.”

Detmer said they’re keeping an eye on the southern hemisphere. Flu is transmitting in Australia and South America because it’s their winter. If there is less virus being transmitted in Australia with efforts to stop coronavirus then there could be a better fall flu season because people are not interacting at the levels that they normally would.

Detmer said steps to reduce the spread of coronavirus include staying at home when you are sick and self isolating.

“Creating bubbles around families, wearing facemasks, are all going to help stop the spread of other respiratory viruses like influenza,” Detmer said.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF