Background: In 2019, the Louisiana Department of Health reported an early influenza B/Victoria (B/VIC) virus outbreak.
Method: As it was an atypically large outbreak, we deployed to Louisiana to investigate it using genomics and a triplex real-time RT-PCR assay to detect three antigenically distinct B/VIC lineage variant viruses.
Results: The investigation indicated that B/VIC V1A.3 subclade, containing a three amino acid deletion in the hemagglutinin and known to be antigenically distinct to the B/Colorado/06/2017 vaccine virus, was the most prevalent circulating virus within the specimens evaluated (86/88 in real-time RT-PCR).
Conclusion: This work underscores the value of portable platforms for rapid, onsite pathogen characterization.
Keywords: B/Victoria lineage; amino acid deletion; influenza outbreak; in‐field detection.
© 2024 The Authors. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.