Recently several media outlets have reported that people in the midwestern U.S. have been infected with H1N1 swine flu.  They’ve even reported that instead of spreading from pigs to humans, it’s spreading human to human.

Well that’s because it isn’t H1N1!  According to the United Nations World Health Organization, and the U.S. Center for Disease Control, it’s an influenza A virus of the H3N2 subtype, a type of flu virus that circulates between humans.

Since July 2011, 10 people in the United States have been infected with it.  Why are some media outlets reporting it as H1N1?  If you read the USA Today, and ABC News articles, you’ll notice that H3N2 is only briefly mentioned.  For some reason the articles focus on the 2009 scare caused by H1N1.  More text is dedicated to talking about H1N1 than to this latest form of H3N2.  Call it a case of fear mongering by the U.S. media.

The problem is some international media outlets have picked up the story as an new outbreak of H1N1!