Xinhua All Media+|Questions and Answers! How does the public respond scientifically to the high incidence of influenza A?
Xinhua News Agency, Xi'an, March 13 (Reporter Lin Juan) Influenza monitoring by the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the level of influenza activity has recently increased in many places in my country. Among the prevailing influenza viruses, influenza A virus has an absolute advantage.
What is A stream?
How is the flu different from the common cold?
How should I treat the flu?
How to scientifically prevent influenza?
Reporters interview disease control experts and infectious disease experts to answer your questions.
What is A stream?
Yu Pengbo, director of the Viral Disease Prevention and Control Institute of Shaanxi Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, introduced that influenza A is the abbreviation of influenza A, and it is an acute respiratory infectious disease caused by influenza A virus infection.
Influenza viruses can be divided into four types: A, B, C, and D according to their core proteins.
Influenza viruses that are seasonally circulating in the human population are influenza A (subtype A H1N1 and subtype A H3N2) and type B (type Yamagata and Victoria) influenza viruses.
Compared with influenza B virus, influenza A virus has many hosts in nature and is more likely to mutate or reassort, causing it to spread rapidly among the population. Many large-scale outbreaks of influenza in history are related to influenza A virus .
Influenza patients and asymptomatic infected persons are the main sources of infection of seasonal influenza.
Influenza viruses are mainly transmitted through air droplets, and can also be transmitted through direct or indirect contact with mucous membranes such as the mouth, nasal cavity, and eyes.
Infection can also be caused by touching items contaminated with the virus.
In crowded and closed or poorly ventilated rooms, it can also be transmitted in the form of aerosols.
How is the flu different from the common cold?
Yu Pengbo introduced that, first of all, the etiology of the two is different. Influenza is caused by influenza virus, and the common cold is caused by rhinovirus and adenovirus.
Second, the seasonality is different. Influenza has obvious seasonality (in northern my country, it occurs frequently from October to March of the following year), while the common cold has no obvious seasonality.
Third, the symptoms are different. The typical symptoms of influenza are fever, which can be as high as 39 to 40 degrees Celsius, accompanied by chills, severe systemic symptoms, headache, muscle pain, and fatigue.
The common cold usually has no fever or mild to moderate fever, mainly with nasopharyngeal symptoms, such as sneezing, runny nose, nasal congestion, sore throat, etc., and systemic symptoms are mild or absent.
Fourth, the hazards are different. Generally, the body temperature gradually subsides after 3 to 4 days after the onset of influenza, and the systemic symptoms improve. However, high-risk groups such as the elderly, children, patients with chronic diseases, and pregnant women may have complications such as pneumonia, otitis media, and myocarditis. Severe illness or even death.
Complications of the common cold are rare and usually recover within 5 to 7 days.
How should I treat the flu?
According to Ye Feng, chief physician of the Department of Infectious Diseases, the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, after the onset of symptoms, patients are advised to rest at home and keep the room ventilated.
Get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids, and eat a diet that is easy to digest and nutritious.
Minimize contact with others to avoid contagion.
The focus of treatment is to relieve flu-like symptoms such as fever and cough. Patients should be closely observed for changes in their condition. Once persistent high fever occurs, accompanied by severe cough, dyspnea, mental changes, severe vomiting and diarrhea, etc., they should seek medical treatment in time.
Children under 5 years old, the elderly, patients with chronic diseases, pregnant women or obese people are more prone to serious complications. They should seek medical treatment as soon as possible and use antiviral drugs under the guidance of doctors as soon as possible. Antibiotics and hormones are ineffective against influenza viruses.
It should be noted that not everyone who has the flu must take antiviral drugs.
The vast majority of flu antiviral drugs are prescription drugs and need to be evaluated by a doctor before use.
At present, the main influenza antiviral drugs available in China are oseltamivir, zanamivir, peramivir, arbidol, and mabaloxavir.
How to prevent flu?
Ye Feng introduced that in daily life, maintaining good personal hygiene habits is an important means of preventing respiratory infectious diseases such as influenza.
Wash your hands frequently, keep the environment clean and ventilated; try to reduce activities in crowded places and avoid contact with patients with respiratory infections; observe the etiquette when coughing; pay attention to rest when you have flu symptoms; wear a mask when going to public places or seeking medical treatment.
In addition, vaccination is the most economical and effective way to prevent influenza. Influenza vaccines can be vaccinated 1 to 2 months before the peak of the influenza epidemic, and can also be vaccinated when the vaccine is available during the epidemic season.
(Xinhuanet)