The flu is a serious illness. Especially not trivial.
Few people escape it throughout their lives, but soon forget the deep discomfort it causes, because the flu heals without sequelae. The real flu is a moment when the organism undergoes a real shelling, by the virus which reproduces at a crazy speed in the organism. Fortunately, it is rather fragile and very sensitive to fever which is our main defense, a little less when it is a coronavirus. It leaves a tired organism for long weeks.
Antibiotics are useless
Influenza is a virus, therefore insensitive to antibiotics. These are only prescribed if a bacterium takes advantage of the weak state of the organism to superinfect it.
If not, plentiful drinks, paracetamol … and bed rest are enough!
There is not one, but flu viruses
This is the race against the clock that specialists in the disease engage in every year: observing and predicting the mutations of this very fickle virus. From year to year, viruses look the same … except that sometimes one becomes very different. This is the case with this coronavirus and it is at this point that we fear a global epidemic, faced with an enemy that we did not expect and that, above all, we know little about.
Having the flu protects you from the flu … but badly!
An attack by a virus causes the body to make specific defenses, which explains why one does not make two real flu in the same year and that one is protected against the virus the following year if it does not is experiencing no significant change. This is generally the case and therefore requires a new vaccination. Those who have what they call a “second flu” are affected by what is called flu-like syndrome, which is an infection that looks like the flu. They are, in fact, victims of a virus other than the flu.
You have to get vaccinated every year
Each year, the viruses that reach France are either the same as the previous year or carry a certain mutation. This explains why the composition of the vaccine changes a little, but also that each year, the protection is more and more effective for those who vaccinate every year. This is undoubtedly one of the effects of the generalized and free vaccination among seniors, which explains that the severe flu affects adults increasingly young.
Fragile children must be vaccinated
There is no doubt about it: all children who suffer from chronic diseases, who have respiratory problems, so-called “fragile” children, should be vaccinated. Which is theoretically the rule in France.
The United States vaccinates all children
American pediatricians recommend influenza vaccination from the age of 6 months, to protect them, but also with the hope that the importance of the disease will decrease over time.
Not all flu viruses are the same
Each year, the “final” virus is always a good or bad surprise depending on the “virulence” of the almost constant mutations.
We must fear the “bad” virus
It is not the classic flu that terrorizes infectious disease specialists today, but rather the imminence of an evil marriage. That of strength and of the traveler. Strength is the avian flu virus, a killing machine that nature confines to the body of a few resistant birds, but which sometimes, for reasons that are not well known – promiscuity, unusual handling – performs a passage noticed in humans. With appalling consequences: mortality close to 100% and maximum contagiousness. Fortunately, he is a fragile and homebody killer. You know the traveler well with viruses. It’s the flu. Volage, he likes common-law. This is why it is never the same from one year to the next and that every autumn, we have to revaccinate. Above all, he is an inexhaustible backpacker whose annual world tour results in tens of millions of human infections, always unpleasant, sometimes serious and fatal.
The microbe likes perfect hugs. The result is a new virus that takes on the qualities of both parents. So if one day the avian flu meets the traditional flu, unites then passes in the man, it is a traveling killer, a weapon of mass destruction which will prepare to surge on the planet.
Science fiction? Alas no. This episode of coronarovirus illustrates this. These weddings are said to be happening with a pig as witness to the wedding! It is in fact through the intermediary of the pig, an organism close to that of humans, that the virus learns to colonize and destroy us. Once his apprenticeship is over, all he has to do is take his deadly world tour.
A scenario feared by the World Health Organization for a few years, followed today by Chinese doctors who show that to put an end to an epidemic of a few thousand cases, they are ready to put a population equal to that of France in quarantine. The forecasts, if this diabolical marriage gives birth to a virus, are, in the event of an epidemic, of several hundreds of thousands of deaths, just for our country.
Remember, WHO says it. Scientists who have a reputation for handling the tongue of wood. Their frankness is cold today. It must be said that history is there to remind them that one of the last marriages of the flu with a Spaniard caused, in 1919 and the following years, nearly 50 million deaths on our planet.
Doctor Jean-François Lemoine
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