Lebanon is witnessing a widespread spread of seasonal viruses, after they disappeared in the last two years due to the #Coronavirus pandemic.
Despite the few calls that the Ministry of Education has received from the schools, and after communicating with the Ministry of Health, the schools have been advised not to close and to take the necessary preventive measures.
Khoury explains to An-Nahar that “The Department of Epidemiological Surveillance of the Ministry of Public Health confirms that there is no need to close classes or schools due to seasonal colds, but rather preventive measures are sufficient and do not welcome students who have cold symptoms.
Khoury notes, “In the Ministry of Education, there is a hotline 01772000 operated by a joint operations room between the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Lebanese Red Cross. When you get a call about a critical health issue, the Ministry of Public Health is contacted to decide what is needed”.
Is the flu virus solely responsible for this great spread of infections in Lebanese society? Does the voltage difference affect the difference in symptoms?
The head of the Bacterial Diseases Research Center of the American University and specialist in pediatrics, Professor Ghassan Dabibo, confirms to “An-Nahar” that “the different strains of flu do not affect the symptoms which generally constitute high fever, headache, body pain, cough, runny nose and sore throat.” While children may suffer from additional symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting.
She says: ‘The laboratory tests that are conducted in some labs for influenza strains are usually used to distinguish between influenza A and influenza B. They are also used to determine the type of strain, whether it is, for example, influenza A H1N1 or A H3N2, because then we need accurate tests that are available in large university laboratories, through PCR technology.
However, Dibebo adds that “every person diagnosed with influenza A is considered to have H1N1 flu until this generalization and appreciation has spread among people and some laboratories, whereas the strain prevalent today, according to the Infectious Diseases Center of the American University of Beirut Medical Center, is 75% H3N2, with some cases recorded for 25% H1N1.
These two strains, H3N2 and H1N1, are currently prevalent in Lebanese society. However, Dabibo confirms that “there are 3 main viruses circulating today, which are the Corona virus which still exists, the influenza virus with the two strains we talked about and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) which usually appears in this time of the year and causes flu-like symptoms (high fever – severe cough – shortness of breath and wheezing in the chest) and spreads 29% more than the flu 21% in the last two weeks of November .
Regarding the factors that led to this large spread of viruses, Dabibo believes that “the main and most important factor is the absence of other respiratory viruses in light of the emergence and spread of the great Corona virus. Some of these viruses , including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus disappeared within two years of the pandemic, and thus this has led to This has led to a decrease in social immunity against these viruses and an immune gap has occurred, especially among some groups , including children who lack immunity against these respiratory viruses that were prevalent before the Corona pandemic.
Because the influenza vaccination rate is low and in the absence of an effective vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, we have seen a large spread of these viruses among children and the elderly.
As for the hospitalization rate resulting from infection with these seasonal viruses, according to Dabibo, it varies between “2% and 5%, depending on the age group. The most affected groups are children under two years of age and the elderly over 65 years of age”. The reason is due to weak immunity as well as the presence of other health problems.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Control (CDC), most children become infected with respiratory syncytial virus before the age of two. Newborns receive passive protection from their mothers, who pass on antibodies to them through breastfeeding.
But what happened today?
The chance of babies born during the pandemic, and those around them, contracting this virus or other viruses has decreased over the past two years. As a result, their immunity either decreased or was not formed at all. So when these young people and their parents started interacting with others, they became more likely to get sick.
But when does the situation require hospitalization of the child?
Dabibo, on the other hand, refuses to close schools and classes, since, in his opinion, “prevention should have been provided through a vaccine, because these viruses are considered seasonal, and appear and spread every year, and what has changed this he year is represented by their greater severity than in previous years, with the influence of the reasons we mentioned at the beginning.
Furthermore, the virus changes and develops on its own, and this change leads to a strong viral surge as a result of the new strain evading the community’s acquired immunity.
