Emergence of a novel subclade of influenza A(H3N2) virus in London, December 2016 to January 2017.
: Harvala H, Frampton D, Grant P, Raffle J, Ferns RB, Kozlakidis Z, Kellam P, Pillay D, Hayward A, Nastouli E, ICONIC Consortium
: 2017
: Eurosurveillance
: Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin
: Euro Surveill
: 22
: 8
: 1025-496X
: 1560-7917
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2017.22.8.30466
We report the molecular investigations of a large influenza A(H3N2) outbreak, in a season characterised by sharp increase in influenza admissions since December 2016. Analysis of haemagglutinin (HA) sequences demonstrated co-circulation of multiple clades (3C.3a, 3C.2a and 3C.2a1). Most variants fell into a novel subclade (proposed as 3C.2a2); they possessed four unique amino acid substitutions in the HA protein and loss of a potential glycosylation site. These changes potentially modify the H3N2 strain antigenicity.