Flu Overview, Part 2

In the first part of this article, we covered the symptoms that come with flu, the disease's symptoms and the difference between the flu and common cold and other diseases. For the second part, we will look at how the flu spreads and what a flu pandemic is. In addition, we will cover the way flu can be prevented and how pandemics may be stopped.

The flu pandemics

Another characteristic of the flu is that it can spread a lot easier than most diseases and it often produces world epidemics, with travelers suffering from flu spreading it to new areas. Although vaccines are usually able to prevent and treat the current virus threat, occasionally the virus mutates so drastically that not even the vaccine will be efficient. This creates a pandemic situation, in which the flu virus is extremely deadly and hard to contain. During pandemic periods, the flu can kill millions of people worldwide. During non-pandemic outbreaks, the death toll is usually around the hundreds of thousands.

The pandemic periods can be approximated to happening around three times each century. For example, the 20th century had three pandemics:

• the Spanish flu pandemic during 1918-1920, caused by the H1N1 virus (death toll of 40 million people, with another 500 million ill)
• the Asian flu during 1957-1958 caused by the H2N2 virus (death toll of 1.5 million people)
• the Hong Kong flu in 1968-1969, caused by the H3N2 virus (death toll of fewer than 1 million people).

As you can see, the death toll was continuously lowered, since medicine had a rapid evolution and containment methods proved more and more efficient. In addition, during the Asian and Hong Kong flu periods, the virus did not mutate as heavily as it had during the Spanish flu, hence the population was more resistant to it. Currently, the biggest flu pandemic threat is caused by the H5N1 virus, although currently, this virus mostly affects birds. Even though H5N1 cases in humans are very scarce, the threat is carefully being handled by the international community as to avoid the outburst of another pandemic.

Flu prevention

The main type of flu prevention is the yearly vaccine. Although this vaccine is not enforced by international health organization, it is recommended that everyone get one. The vaccine can be extremely effective in quelling the spread of the virus in our bodies, but since the influenza viruses are on a constant mutation, a renewed version of the vaccine is produced each year, hence the need for a new shot on a yearly basis. It should be noted that even if you get the vaccine done, there is still a slight chance that you catch the flu, since the content of the vaccine cannot possibly contain the agents to combat all the different virus strains that affect people on a world scale.

Therefore, in addition to the vaccine, a good personal hygiene is extremely important in preventing the spread of the virus. The virus can easily be eliminated if one keeps a relatively good personal hygiene level, which explains the fact that most pandemics or viral outbursts start in underdeveloped areas, where constant hygiene is more of a luxury than a daily habit.

This is the second of a two-part series on the flu. Here is Part 1.

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