-
Asked by emmagrace to Dalya, Derek, Sarah, Tim, Tom on 18 Jun 2011.
-
Tim Millar answered on 17 Jun 2011:
Flu is caused by a virus. Other animals such as pigs and birds can also be infected by a pig or bird version of the flu. When pigs, birds and humans all live close together, ther is a chance that human flu, pig flu and bird flu can all be in the same person at the same time. Normally this is fine until the flu viruses start to swap genetic information. The new virus then has bits of each of the old ones which allows it to jump species.
Swine flu is the result of a pig virus becoming humanised in that it can infect humans. This type of flu is often more severe than seasonal flu because its new and non of us have seen it before. We have no immunity to it, our immune system which usually fights off infections takes time to get going on the new virus and for some people they don’t survive.
Flu can affect the lungs and cause them to fill up with fluid and eventually blood which causes the patients to die. The flu does this so it can go and infect someonelse and start the process all over again.
Keeping hands clean can help and limiting exposure, and there are a couple of drugs which help and a vaccine for te seasonal flu.
Most healthy people are ususally okay, but if you have an underlying disease, you may find it more difficult to fight off the infection.
-
-
Dalya Soond answered on 17 Jun 2011:
Good answer Tim. Too many questions still to go, so I will leave this one as it is.
-
-
Comments
emmagrace commented on :
How do you avoid swine flu!!
Derek commented on :
As Tim said in his reply… wash your hands (properly), especially before eating. Avoid contact with infected people. Keep yourself healthy too… if you are fit and healthy and eat healthy food, you are less vulnerable to swine flu and its affects (as well as many other diseases too!)
Tim commented on :
Avoiding contact witht the virus and stopping it getting on your mucous membranes (nose, mouth etc) So hand to mouth contact and mouth to mouth contact are all important. Wash hands and have a healthy immune system
The big Flu pandemic from 1918 affected teens and middle aged people because there was a massive immune response a so called cytokine fire. Old people were safe because they has seen a similar version of the virus around 60 years before, Infants who are usually vulnerable had not seen the virus so didn’t have the big reaction that young adults had so were also safe. Something like 100million people died as a result of that flu outbreak (around 9000 people a day!) brought from the war hospitals in France because of lots of mixing of people, pigs and ducks.