MBOMBELA – Swine flu is no more dangerous than “regular” strains of seasonal influenza A, Lancet Laboratories explained this week.
This came after the Mpumalanga Department of Health last week refuted claims that the area was experiencing a swine flu outbreak.
See more
Dr Allison Glass, a virologist with the pathology company, explained that a new strain of influenza A is introduced to people every couple of decades as viruses evolve.
When an influenza strain, such as H1N1, changes enough to commonly infect people (as it did from pigs in Mexico in 2009) people initially tend to get severely ill in the first year. After that, people’s immune systems adapt to the new strain through exposure to it, and it becomes part of the “normal” seasonal flu.
Influenza B is commonly described as less severe than its counterpart. “It can be milder, but it is managed in the same way, and can be very dangerous.”
They are all equally contagious and treated in a similar manner, Glass says.
When patients who are at a high risk due to pre-existing conditions, such as heart conditions, pregnancy or old age, contract the flu, they are typically treated with antivirals such as Oseltamivir.
For low-risk patients, symptomatic treatment is generally prescribed.
Bird flu is essentially still an avian disease. Unlike H1N1, it has not changed sufficiently to be a human strain that can easily spread among people. Should a human contract it, they get severely ill, but the risk of catching that strain is low.
Read more
“Normal” flu is, however, still very dangerous and people die of it every year. “We treat it as an important infection, and people at risk can become severely ill.”
She adds that the majority of labs have stopped reporting the strain of influenza A a patient has.
