8 Cold and Flu Remedies for a Good Night's Sleep

Parkinson's Disease

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Focus On: Influenza

by ANASTASIA STEPHENS, Daily Mail

As the Department of Health launches this year's flu vaccination campaign, Asda supermarket has announced that it, too, will be offering the jab to 35,000 customers at a cut-price rate.

But although flu affects more than half a million people so badly that they see a doctor, the vaccine is not suitable for everyone.

So who is most at risk and is there any alternative treatment? Find out with our guide below.

What causes it?

Flu is caused by the influenza virus, which spreads in tiny water droplets when people cough. There are three strains, A, B and C, yet influenza types A and B are mainly responsible for the epidemics of illness that strike each winter.

'When inhaled, the viruses enter cells lining the airways of the lungs,' explains Dr Douglas Flemming, who runs a flu monitoring unit at the Northfield Health Centre, Birmingham.

'They then multiply and spread, infecting the lung surface, causing inflammation and a build up of mucous. The immune system responds by sending antibodies to the area to fight and kill the virus.'

Fully blown symptoms, such as aching joints and a high temperature, tend to set in within two days of contracting the infection. And while the virus can remain in the lungs for five days or longer, it is most infectious during the first 48 hours, when the viruses are most likely to spread in tiny water droplets.

What are the symptoms?

People develop a sore throat and lungs, which can become mucous-filled, inflamed and painful. What distinguishes flu from colds, is that it also causes achy joints, fatigue and a high, feverish temperature.

In elderly or people with weak immunity or lungs, flu can lead to acute lung infections and pneumonia.

What are the main flu-fighting drugs?

Most people rely on over-thecounter preparations that are primarily designed to alleviate flu symptoms. Treatments such as Day Nurse, or Benylin 4 Flu contain painkillers, decongestant and cough suppressant medications.

Lemsip contains painkilling medication as well as Vitamin C and honey to soothe the throat.

Prescription antiviral drugs for the prevention and treatment of flu include zanamivir (Relenza), which combats the influenza A and B strains.

It can be taken preventively by people who, for medical reasons, can't have the vaccine and can reduce flu infection by 60 to 90 per cent. However, because of side-effects, including breathing problems, with zanamivir, the drug can't be taken by everyone, particularly asthmatics. Other prescription drugs such as amantadine (Symmetrel) stop the influenza virus from replicating.

If taken within two days of illness, it can reduce the severity and duration of symptoms by 24 hours. To reduce the risk of drug-resistant viruses, doctors recommend you stop using any medication within 24 to 48 hours of symptoms clearing.

Antibiotics are ineffective against flu and all other viral illnesses including the common colds.

What's in the flu jab and who should be vaccinated?

Flu vaccines - the main preventive treatment - are produced each year based on last year's flu strains.

'Vaccines are designed each year based on the flu viruses that were circulating the previous winter,' explains Dr Flemming. 'This year's vaccine protects against two types of Astrain influenza and a B-strain of influenza based on last year's viruses.'

Flu vaccines are recommended for the elderly, and for people with conditions such as diabetes, cystic fibrosis, asthma, and heart disease who find lung infections difficult to shift.

'As part of the Department of Health's flu vaccination campaign, everyone over the age of 65 is entitled to a free flu jab but immunisation is also strongly recommended for other high-risk groups,' says spokesman Phil Jenkins.

'Those with weakened immunity should also seriously consider vaccination.

'Protection is vital for these people because for them, flu infection can lead to hospitalisation and potentially fatal illnesses such as pneumonia. This year's vaccine should give good general coverage against any flu infection. However, as the strains can mutate, there will still be a small flu risk.

'Even then, a vaccination should still offer some protection and any infection will not be as severe as in people who haven't been vaccinated.'

The best time to have the jab is between late September and early November, before outbreaks are likely to occur.

However, medication, and not vaccination, is advised for people who are otherwise healthy.

'While flu is a nuisance for most people, it's not serious - we don't recommend the vaccine because a real dose of the illness gives better long-term protection than a flu vaccination.'

As the flu vaccine is grown in hen's eggs, anyone with an allergy to eggs shouldn't be vaccinated. The vaccine isn't recommended if you are pregnant.

Cold or flu?

Causing a cough, sore throat, a temperature and runny nose, cold and flu symptoms can be remarkably similar.

Yet flu is often more serious and in some people requires immediate medical attention. Read this guide to help you tell the difference:

Has your temperature risen to 100F or higher? Temperatures of this level indicate fever and therefore a flu-like illness, not a cold.

Do you have respiratory symptoms such as a cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose but no fever or headache? If so, you probably have a cold, not flu.

Do you have aching joints as well as a lung infection? As aching joints are a hallmark of flu-like illness, you have flu, not a cold.

Do you feel ill, yet able to struggle though work?

This level of illness is probably more indicative of a cold. Flu, causing muscular aches, joint pains and exhaustion would, in all likelihood, leave you bedridden.

Do your symptoms include vomiting or diarrhoea? These symptoms can accompany flu infections and are more common in children, yet they are rarely or never associated with colds.

Why does flu keep coming back?

Why, when you've overcome one bout of flu, do you come down with a similar infection months later? The problem with the flu virus is that it can mutate very quickly, making any immunity people build up against it useless.

'A person can catch a strain of influenza A in December,' says Dr Flemming. 'Then, even though they've built an immunity against it, they can come down with a similar strain of influenza A in March.

'That's because the virus can trick the immune system by mutating into a different form.' This, explains Dr Flemming, is why flu remains a serious and highly infectious illness.

'If the virus didn't mutate, people would build up an immunity against it and they wouldn't get ill. But because influenza viruses can change within a matter of months, they continue to infect millions of people every year.'

Why this year's flu could hit so hard

New influenza viruses capable of causing illness in humans emerge in the world every year - usually in Asia, where animals live in close proximity with man - increasing the risk of a virus crossing the species barrier.

When a new virus is significantly different, it can avoid the natural immunity already present in the community and cause an epidemic.

This happened in Hong Kong five years ago, when a flu virus from chickens infected 18 people, killing six of them.

This virus had 'anti-immune' characteristics, meaning that it could survive some of the body's major defence systems. Luckily, it wasn't highly infectious among humans. However, there is evidence to show that other flu viruses with similar antiimmune abilities have developed.

If such strains were to emerge this year, they could spread quickly and prove deadly in people with weakened immunity.

'The main worry is that this year's strain is one which our immune system isn't prepared to fight,' says John Oxford, professor of virology at Queen Mary's School of Medicine.

'Although most healthy people would be able to mount a defence against it, in the elderly and weak, it could prove far more serious and they should be vaccinated.'

Cutting flu and cold risk

Hand washing is the single most important means of preventing infection - while flu is transported in airborne droplets, cold viruses can be brushed on to hands, computers and telephones and may remain contagious for hours or days.

Even if you cough or sneeze on to your hand, the objects you touch afterwards can transmit your germs to others. Whether you have a cold or the flu, to limit spreading infection, you should either sneeze into a tissue or cough into your sleeve at the bend of your elbow.

This prevents infected droplets from being sprayed on to other surfaces. To cut the risk of being infected, be careful not to bite your fingers or fingernails, wipe your nose with your hand or touch your face unless you know your hands are clean.

FOR more information about flu vaccination and staying healthy over winter call NHS Direct on 0845 4647. Boots is offering the flu vaccine in selected stores from October 1 for £20. Tel: 0845 070 8090.

Asda will offer the flu jab - paid for at the check-out and administered by qualified nurses - for £11.97 on Saturday, October 12 at 256 stores. If popular, it intends to expand the scheme. Tel: 0500 100 055.

WHY I MUST GET THE JAB

Seven-year-old Rebecca Joseph, from Camberley, Surrey, suffers from a rare lung disease. If she didn't have the flu vaccination each year, she would be at risk of serious illness.

Her mother, Charmaine, says:'Rebecca has primary ciliary dyskinesia, which means the cilia, or hairs which carry phlegm out of the lungs, don't work. She needs physiotherapy every day to stop fluid building up - so to Rebecca, a cold or flu infection is at most potentially fatal and at least a terrible ordeal.

'Because her lungs don't work properly, they're particularly susceptible to infection. When she is well, Rebecca leads a normal active life. She goes swimming, tap dancing and to ballet and loves them all.

'But she's susceptible to lung infections - you only need to sneeze in the same room for her to get a heavy cold.

'Even a mild flu infection would leave her seriously ill and in constant pain.That's why she is vaccinated unfailingly each year and her next jab will be in October.

'When she was a baby, Rebecca was in hospital seriously ill with bronchial pneumonia. It started from a small infection but her lungs couldn't fight back - that's the kind of thing that would happen if she fell ill with flu. For her, the flu jab really means the difference between life and death, and it gives me tremendous peace of mind.'

As asthma makes her more susceptible to

acute lung infections, Lyn Sanders, a 34-year-old secretary who lives near Aldershot, Hampshire, has been having flu jabs for the past five years.

She says: 'Because of my asthma, I'm very susceptible to colds and flu - it seems someone just needs to cough near me and I'll catch an illness.

Then, four years ago, my doctor suggested I have a flu vaccination - I hated being ill and couldn't afford to take the time off work, particularly as I was at risk of flu developing into something more serious.

'I haven't had flu since I started taking the vaccine, and have taken few sick days off work. I just wish I'd known about it sooner.'

Swine Flu Risk Calculator

Swine influenza (swine flu) is a respira`tory disease of pigs. It is caused by type A influenza virus (H1N1). Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans. However human swine flu infections occurred and caused a pandemic in 2009 with several deaths reported worldwide. Human infections with H1N1 influenza occur in people with direct exposure to pigs (such as workers in swine industry), but cases of human-to-human spread of swine flu are also noted. Human-to-human transmission happens through air droplets from cough or sneeze of people infected with influenza virus.

Know your risk for contracting H1N1 influenza virus and take necessary precautionary steps.

Swine Flu Facts 2009 H1N1 was first detected in the United States in April 2009

WHO had raised the influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5 on April 29th 2009; Phase 4 is characterized by verified human-to-human transmission of an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus able to cause "community-level outbreaks." Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region

Swine flu is a combination of genes from swines, birds and human flu virus, according to CDC.

H1N1 influenza A virus is contagious and can spread from human to human.

Data reveals that the type A influenza viruses originated in pigs in Asia, but now it has become a human disease. It is spreading very quickly throughout Britain.

Swine flu viruses circulating in U.S. Pigs in the recent years are

I) Swine triple reassortant (tr) H1N1

II) trH3N2 

III) trH1N2

People with H1N1 infections are considered potentially contagious one day before the onset of symptoms and can go up to 7 days following the illness. Children might be contagious for a longer duration.

Pregnant women are more vulnerable to swine flu since their immune systems are less effective.

Swine flu symptoms in humans are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include cough, sore throat, fever, headaches, body aches, chills and feeling tired.

H1N1 flu viruses are not transmitted by food; one cannot get swine flu from eating pork or pork products. However, eating properly handled pork and pork products is safe; cooking pork at 160 degrees F kills the viruses and food borne pathogens.

Influenza complications include worsening of asthma, pneumonia, confusion, seizures and respiratory failure

Antiviral drugs like oseltamivir (tamiflu) and zanamivir (relenza) are used for the treatment and prevention of swine flu. These two drugs are approved by the FDA for the treatment of flu in both children and adults. Swine flu virus is found to be resistant to amantadine (symmetrel) and rimantadine (flumadine).

Swine flu vaccines: Two different brands of vaccines have been developed to protect against the virus that causes swine flu. These include

1.Pandemrix vaccine is given as single dose

2.Celvapen vaccine given as two doses, 3 weeks apart.

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