starting tomorrow you'll have to be a
parent and over the age of 13 to visit
inpatient and observation units at the
Children's Hospital of Michigan the new
rules are part of an effort to fight the
flu last year's flu season was one of
the worst in recent memory and we've
already seen a rise in confirmed cases
in Metro Detroit this year these new
guidelines will only be in effect
through the flu season so what will this
year's flu season bring it is a
difficult question but local researchers
are already working hard trying to get
those answers for you dr. Frank McGeorge
is here with a special look actually
inside the flu lab at the University of
Michigan and this was definitely
different Karen and Jason you know the
flu is notoriously unpredictable and
that's what makes preventing it's so
challenging inside the University of
Michigan's School of Public Health there
is a team dedicated to monitoring both
the spread of the flu and the
effectiveness of the vaccine and it's
critical information that helps guide
decisions that save lives as Americans
rolled up their sleeves to get this
year's flu shot the severity of last
year's season cast a big shadow the u.s.
almost alone in the northern hemisphere
had a very bad whoo season related to
the h3n2 dr. Arnold Monto is a
world-renowned flu expert he says the
predominance of the h3n2 virus last year
was bad because it tends to cause more
severe complications and the vaccine
often doesn't work as well against it
there are hints that a different flu
virus called h1n1 could be the dominant
flu this year the strain used to make
this year's vaccine is actually from
Michigan it's called a Michigan
it was specimens from our lab that
helped pull this together to identify
what is needed and we showed that there
was a difference between the a
California which is the previous one and
the a Michigan and this related to the
history of people's exposure to flu and
people who had exposure with us other
virus the a California didn't work as
well as the a mesh
and that's why we now have a Michigan
virus in the vaccine this flu lab is one
of five centers across the country that
collects data for the CDC those
estimates that come out in the news to
say the vaccine is X percent effective
those come directly from the University
of Michigan and for other places
assistant professor Emily Martin says in
addition to samples collected from
hospitals and clinics they monitor local
families they visit us every time
they're sick and we get samples and we
find out when they're vaccinated for
some families we take blood a few times
a year to see immunologically how the
vaccine is working Martin and Monto are
frustrated that the vaccine is sometimes
not as effective as everyone would like
but they wish more people understood the
benefits even a poor match can offer but
with many other diseases if we could
tell you that you could take one shot
that would reduce your risk of dying or
going to the doctor or getting even
infected with this disease by 30% that's
as good as many other interventions that
we have on the market many things that
are more expensive a lot more side
effects on flu vaccine Monto also urges
more people to take advantage of
antiviral drugs which work best in the
first two days of the illness people
tend to go to the doctor five days sick
said two weeks out I'm still coughing
well there isn't a whole lot you can do
at that point now many people have heard
of Tamiflu but the FDA recently approved
a new single dose antiviral called so
flus a-- in addition to shortening
symptoms Monto says it appears it may
reduce your ability to transmit the flu
to others regardless it is still better
to avoid catching the flu if you can by
of course getting the flu shot be
precaution or use precautions and as Ben
said I think those some of the folks in
Ohio are gonna enjoy getting to Michigan
the Michigan strange foreign stranger
all right Bernie joins us now to look at
sports how the Lions do Anna we're gonna
talk about what we're working on
tomorrow at 5:00