The seasonal flu virus called H3N2 has claimed its first victim of the year in Costa Rica, when a 30 year old man from Curridabat, died on on Wednesday.

Maria Ethel Trejos, director of Vigilancia de la Salud (Ministerio de Salud), said the man was asthmatic and suffered from an immune deficiency problem.

The young man was in Perez Zeledon, who died in the Escalante Pradilla hospital.

This death is in addition to the two H1N1 deaths of January 12 and 14, the latter, after the pandemic, became a seasonal influenza virus.

Trejos said that in the three cases the patients sought medical treatment too late and that is important for the public not to let down their guard and practice good hygiene and sneezing and coughing protocols.

The Influenza A virus subtype H3N2 (also H3N2) is not new. It is a subtype of viruses that causes influenza (flu). H3N2 Viruses can infect birds and mammals. In birds, humans, and pigs, the virus has mutated into many strains. H3N2 is increasingly abundant in seasonal influenza, which kills thousands each year. In the last half of 2011, a dozen human cases of a new variant of the disease have been found in the U.S. This new variant is called H3N2v.

The H3N2 appears to be transmissible among humans.

Flu vaccines are based on predicting which mutants of H1N1, H3N2, H1N2, and influenza B will proliferate in the next season. Separate vaccines are developed for the northern and southern hemispheres in preparation for their annual epidemics. In the tropics, influenza shows no clear seasonality. In the past ten years, H3N2 has tended to dominate in prevalence over H1N1, H1N2, and influenza B.

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