It has been 6 weeks of relative calm: very few children with fever (and those who did, mostly had obvious hand-foot-mouth disease, pneumonia, or strep throat); not a single positive flu test in these 6 weeks, and that’s after having over 20 a day in June.  We are continuing to do flu tests, so watch this space: we’ll be among the first to know when flu returns.  It is now highly prevalent in the Middle East, the Southern Hemisphere, and other places it did not hit early.  Russia appears to have only a few cases so far, partly due to a vigorous screening and isolation program; whether it works in the long run remains to be seen.  My recommendation (Mexico is now the best and safest place to go on vacation) stands, as do all my previous advices.  I would like to re-emphasize one of them:  vitamin supplementation.  More than half of all the children I have so far tested are Vitamin D deficient (as opposed to none deficient for B12 and Folic acid), and Vitamins D and A are essential for proper immune response.