Out of every 100,000 hospitalizations in the U.S., 22.7 were for the flu in the first week in January. According to the CDC, the number had doubled from the week before. During the severe flu season that ended in 2015, rates of hospitalizations reached 29.9 for every 100,000.
The winter season that began in 2017 and will end in 2018 “unquestionably falls into a bad year,” says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. First is the nature of the most dominant flu strain infecting people – H3N2. Flu viruses mutate every year, and it’s common to see several strains of flu during the same season. A similar strain called H1N1 was responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic, and the 2009 “swine flu” outbreak. “H3N2 is historically the bad actor among influenzas,” he says. “It’s also associated with complications.”
The second reason H3N2 has been so pervasive, says Fauci, is people have less exposure to it. When the same flu strain strikes repeatedly, people and thus regions tend to build up immunity.
The third reason this year’s flu has been so bad is complications with the vaccine. Most influenza vaccines are grown in chicken eggs, and when this year’s vaccine was being incubated, the virus mutated while it was growing and became less effective. Scientists think it may only be about 30% effective against H3N2. In Australia, the vaccine was only 10% effective.
At best, says Fauci, flu vaccines are only ever about 60% effective. While that makes it a least 60% more effective than not getting a vaccine at all, it still means the rapidly mutating virus has a fighting chance. Every year, the World Health Organization (WHO) meets to determine what specific flu strains should receive vaccines in the northern hemisphere. H3N2 was one of several identified as a threat.
There are four different types of influenza virus, three of which infect people. Of those three, influenza A and B are the most common and each of those subsets develops different strains. H1N1 and H3N2, for example, are strains of influenza A, and they adapt by constantly changing their surface proteins.
Showing posts with label flu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flu. Show all posts
Monday, January 22, 2018
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Wisdom Wednesday: Cold and Flu Season
So it dawns upon you upon awakening one morning that you might be “coming down” with something. Your first response is “it’s just allergies” – big mistake. The sooner you attack this infection, the quicker you will recover.
My first recommendation is colloidal silver. Please read one of my early blogs “The Blue Man Group” posted October 18, 2013. I keep colloidal silver in the bathroom medicine cabinet. If I wake up in the middle of the night with a sore throat, I gargle with colloidal silver for 30 seconds and then swallow it. By morning the sore throat is gone. However, if I have forgotten about that sore throat and don’t follow up with a few more doses of colloidal silver, the infection may rise again.
My second recommendation is the herb andrographis. It has excellent infection fighting benefits. I used it with good success against the H1N1 virus a couple of years ago when the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) had physicians confirming suspected cases of H1N1.
I am also a big fan of the Netti pot for irrigating the sinuses. You can purchase a Netti pot at any drug store. I prefer to use a little colloidal silver in lieu of the kosher salt. You must use distilled water with this device. Tap water contains nematodes that can breed in your sinus cavities then migrate into the brain causing death. (I keep telling you not to drink that tap water)
Winter colds and flues peak in my office about this time every year. The event is not as pronounced in South Florida with its warmer climate, but the snowbirds bring us our share of infections. Please review my blog “The Flu Can Infect many Without Causing Symptoms” posted on March 31, 2014.
The best preventative is echinacea. Although it is the most popular herb in America, it is seldom used properly. Many people start taking echinacea at the first sign of a cold. That’s really too late. Echinacea takes two weeks of daily supplementation to reach peak levels in your body. I recommend taking a daily dose all through the flu season as a preventative.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Study Finds Many Flu Patients Not Treated Appropriately
The findings show that doctors require more training about the proper use of antiviral and antibiotic drugs in treating flu patients, the researchers said. Unnecessary use of antibiotics contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance.
“Our results suggest that during 2012-13, antiviral medications were under prescribed and antibiotics may have been inappropriately prescribed to a large proportion of the outpatients with influenza,” wrote Dr. Fiona Havers and colleagues from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Prevention and several other institutions.
The researchers analyzed data from about 6,800 patients with flu symptoms seen at five outpatient care centers in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin and Washington State during the 2012-13 flu season. The team focused on prescription records for two antiviral drugs for flu – oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) – and three widely used antibiotics (amoxicillin-clavulanate, amoxicillin, and azithromycin).
Antiviral drugs were prescribed to only 19% of patients who were at high risk for flu complications and saw a primary care provider within two days of their flu symptoms emerging. And only 16% of patients with laboratory-confirmed flu got oseltamivir or zanamivir.
Monday, March 31, 2014
The Flu Can Infect Many Without Causing Symptoms
Think you know who has the flu? Thing again: a new study finds that three-quarters of people infected with seasonal flu and swine flu in recent years showed no symptoms.
Sunday, March 16, 2014 (National Institutes of Health)
Researchers analyzed data gathered in England during the winter flu seasons between 2006 and 2011, including the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic.
Overall, about 18 percent of unvaccinated people became infected with an influenza virus, but only 23 percent of them went on to develop flu symptoms, the researchers reported March 16 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
What’s more, only about 17 percent of infected people became ill enough to see a doctor, the British study found. And compared with some the seasonal flu strains, the 2009 swine flu strain actually caused much milder symptoms.
The findings suggest that relying on data about flu-related visits to primary care doctors underestimates the extent of flu infections and illnesses, the researchers said.
Overall, the infection rate for the winter flu seasons as calculated in the study were an average of 22 times higher than the rates recorded by standard methods.
"Reported cases of influenza represent the tip of a large clinical and subclinical iceberg that is mainly invisible to national surveillance systems that only record cases seeking medical attention," study lead author Dr. Andrew Hayward, of University College London, said in a journal new release.
"Most people don’t go to the doctor when they have the flu" he added. "Even when they do consult they are often not recognized as having influenza. Surveillance based on patients who consult greatly underestimates the number of community cases, which in turn can lead to overestimates of the proportion of cases who end up in the hospital or die."
An important question that needs to be answered is whether people who have the flu but have only mild or no symptoms can still easily pass on the virus, Dr. Peter William Horby from the Oxford University Clinical research Unit in Vietnam, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
Even if only mildly infectious, a large number of these people could play a major role in spreading flu each season, he suggested.
MY TAKE:
The symptoms associated with the flu are the result of the body’s immune response rather than the presence of the virus itself. Some of the more dangerous forms of influenza, like the Spanish Flu and its descendant H1N1 can be fatal only because the immune system reacts so violently to the infection, the infiltration of WBCs (white blood cells) into the lungs literally drowns the host. That’s why these flu epidemics kill young healthy adults rather than the very young and very old who have little immune response to challenge the virus.
Autoimmune diseases, like MS, Crohn’s Disease, and Rheumatoid Arthritis, are also a result of an overactive immune system and thought to be triggered by viral infections and other foreign bodies that find their way into the blood stream. Eighty-five percent of emerging disease is autoimmune in nature. I fear that the rapid spread of viral infections in our global population, along with the high mutation rates of viral infections is the driving force behind much of autoimmune disease.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
If someone around has the flu, you are probably infected as well, even if you never develop any symptoms. To protect against colds and flues, a daily dose of Echinacea is recommended. It takes two weeks for Echinacea to reach its’ full potential in the immune system. Then it acts as a modulator rather than just stimulating the immune system. It can protect against an overt over active immune response to H1N1 as well as stimulate a response to a more passive virus. Eighty percent of the Echinacea sold in the US is not Echinacea or is made from the wrong plant species or wrong plant parts. Fortunately, good Echinacea will make your tongue “tingle” within a minute or so of placing it on the tongue. That’s an easy test to see if you are taking the real thing.
Sunday, March 16, 2014 (National Institutes of Health)
Researchers analyzed data gathered in England during the winter flu seasons between 2006 and 2011, including the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic.
Overall, about 18 percent of unvaccinated people became infected with an influenza virus, but only 23 percent of them went on to develop flu symptoms, the researchers reported March 16 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
What’s more, only about 17 percent of infected people became ill enough to see a doctor, the British study found. And compared with some the seasonal flu strains, the 2009 swine flu strain actually caused much milder symptoms.
The findings suggest that relying on data about flu-related visits to primary care doctors underestimates the extent of flu infections and illnesses, the researchers said.
Overall, the infection rate for the winter flu seasons as calculated in the study were an average of 22 times higher than the rates recorded by standard methods.
"Reported cases of influenza represent the tip of a large clinical and subclinical iceberg that is mainly invisible to national surveillance systems that only record cases seeking medical attention," study lead author Dr. Andrew Hayward, of University College London, said in a journal new release.
"Most people don’t go to the doctor when they have the flu" he added. "Even when they do consult they are often not recognized as having influenza. Surveillance based on patients who consult greatly underestimates the number of community cases, which in turn can lead to overestimates of the proportion of cases who end up in the hospital or die."
An important question that needs to be answered is whether people who have the flu but have only mild or no symptoms can still easily pass on the virus, Dr. Peter William Horby from the Oxford University Clinical research Unit in Vietnam, wrote in an accompanying editorial.
Even if only mildly infectious, a large number of these people could play a major role in spreading flu each season, he suggested.
MY TAKE:
The symptoms associated with the flu are the result of the body’s immune response rather than the presence of the virus itself. Some of the more dangerous forms of influenza, like the Spanish Flu and its descendant H1N1 can be fatal only because the immune system reacts so violently to the infection, the infiltration of WBCs (white blood cells) into the lungs literally drowns the host. That’s why these flu epidemics kill young healthy adults rather than the very young and very old who have little immune response to challenge the virus.
Autoimmune diseases, like MS, Crohn’s Disease, and Rheumatoid Arthritis, are also a result of an overactive immune system and thought to be triggered by viral infections and other foreign bodies that find their way into the blood stream. Eighty-five percent of emerging disease is autoimmune in nature. I fear that the rapid spread of viral infections in our global population, along with the high mutation rates of viral infections is the driving force behind much of autoimmune disease.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
If someone around has the flu, you are probably infected as well, even if you never develop any symptoms. To protect against colds and flues, a daily dose of Echinacea is recommended. It takes two weeks for Echinacea to reach its’ full potential in the immune system. Then it acts as a modulator rather than just stimulating the immune system. It can protect against an overt over active immune response to H1N1 as well as stimulate a response to a more passive virus. Eighty percent of the Echinacea sold in the US is not Echinacea or is made from the wrong plant species or wrong plant parts. Fortunately, good Echinacea will make your tongue “tingle” within a minute or so of placing it on the tongue. That’s an easy test to see if you are taking the real thing.
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