Contents:
- Medical Video: Why The Flu Can Kill A Healthy Person So Quickly | NBC Nightly News
- Is it cold?
- Pneumonia also causes people to die of flu
- Do prevention with flu shots
Medical Video: Why The Flu Can Kill A Healthy Person So Quickly | NBC Nightly News
For most people, flu is characterized by general symptoms such as body heat, fever or chills, coughing, runny nose, stuffy nose, and fatigue. In more severe cases, there have been several health cases that found several people died of flu. Is it true that flu can cause death?
Is it cold?
Flu, or influenza, is viral respiratory infection. Influenza comes suddenly, lasts for 7 to 10 days, and usually goes away. Most people recover over time.
However, for parents, toddlers, and people with weak immunity, flu can trigger more severe conditions and even result in death from complications. Other types of flu are swine flu (HIN1), bird flu (H5N1, H7N9), and others.
Every year there are 10% to 15% of flu cases, affecting 250,000 - 500,000 people. A new type of influenza A / H1N1 caused an outbreak in June 2009. Most people get the flu during the rainy season and before the turn of the season.
Pneumonia also causes people to die of flu
According to professor Dominic Dwyer, quoted from the Sidney Morning Herald, who is also a virologist and infectious disease doctor at Westmead Hospital, most people who die from flu are actually not killed by influenza infection itself.
Flu is only the initial symptom of complications from respiratory diseases that can be fatal. However, complications of flu that can cause death are often caused by pneumonia.
Bacteria Staphylococcus and pneumococcus passing through the throat and nose can penetrate the damaged mucous lining of the respiratory tract after you catch the flu. Damage due to flu can make the "entry gate" for other malignant bacteria or viruses to enter the lungs or bloodstream, which can make the body exposed to dangerous infections.
Lungs damaged by flu can also make a person's body susceptible to bacterial infections. Professor Dwyer also stated that bacteria can grow and stay in the lungs, which usually reside in the lobes or even the two lungs.
The flu can also make the health condition of other organs worse, not only the lungs. This condition includes heart, kidney, and liver disease. This is especially riskier for people who have weak immune systems, children, and older people who are more susceptible to the flu and experience complications.
Do prevention with flu shots
Searched from CNN, The United States Centrals for Disease Control (CDC) released statistical data on victims who died of flu. Flu at times sometimes becomes an epidemic or reaches an epidemic stage. Because, in 2016 alone there were 15 children who were reported to have died of flu, one of which was a toddler. But the CDC cannot ascertain whether those who died of flu have received the vaccine or not.
Well, flu vaccine or influenza is a vaccine that protects our body from influenza. Because the development of influenza virus is very fast, the new version of this vaccine will appear twice a year, with effectiveness varying annually, most influenza vaccines provide moderate to high protection against influenza.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that almost everyone over 6 months get a flu vaccine every year. Especially for pregnant women, toddlers, people with other disease conditions, and health care workers.
In addition to flu shots, you can also increase immunity by eating with balanced nutrition, exercising regularly, and getting enough rest.
