0_Wizard
You know, I don't think I've EVER caught influenza or "the flu", despite never having a vaccine for the virus.
Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by an influenza virus.
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Influenza
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Influenza vaccine
Influenza vaccines, also known as flu shots or flu jabs, are vaccines that protect against infection by Influenza viruses. A new version of the vaccine is developed twice a year, as the Influenza virus rapidly changes. While their effectiveness varies from year to year, most provide modest to high protection against influenza. The CDC estimates that vaccination against influenza reduces sickness, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. When an immunized worker does catch the flu, they are on average back at work a half day sooner. Vaccine effectiveness in those under two years old and over 65 years old remains unknown due to the low quality of the research.
Influenza pandemic
An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the world population. In contrast to the regular seasonal epidemics of influenza, these pandemics occur irregularly—there have been about 9 influenza pandemics during the last 300 years. Pandemics can cause high levels of mortality, with the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic being the worst in recorded history; this pandemic was estimated to be responsible for the deaths of approximately 50–100 million people. There have been about three influenza pandemics in each century for the last 300 years, the most recent one being the 2009 flu pandemic.
Influenza
Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by an influenza virus. Symptoms can be mild to severe. The most common symptoms include: a high fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pains, headache, coughing, and feeling tired. These symptoms typically begin two days after exposure to the virus and most last less than a week. The cough, however, may last for more than two weeks. In children, there may be nausea and vomiting, but these are not common in adults. Nausea and vomiting occur more commonly in the unrelated infection gastroenteritis, which is sometimes inaccurately referred to as "stomach flu" or the "24-hour flu".
2009 flu pandemic
The 2009 flu pandemic or "swine flu" was an influenza pandemic, and the second of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus (the first of them being the 1918 flu pandemic), albeit in a new version. First described in April 2009, the virus appeared to be a new strain of H1N1 which resulted when a previous triple reassortment of bird, swine and human flu viruses further combined with a Eurasian pig flu virus, leading to the term "swine flu". Unlike most strains of influenza, H1N1 does not disproportionately infect adults older than 60 years; this was an unusual and characteristic feature of the H1N1 pandemic.
2009 flu pandemic vaccine
The 2009 flu pandemic vaccines are the set of influenza vaccines that have been developed to protect against the pandemic H1N1/09 virus. These vaccines either contain inactivated (killed) influenza virus, or weakened live virus that cannot cause influenza. The killed vaccine is injected, while the live vaccine is given as an interperineal nasal spray. Both these types of vaccine are usually produced by growing the virus in chicken eggs. Around three billion doses will be produced annually, with delivery from November 2009. In studies, the vaccine appears both effective and safe, providing a strong protective immune response and having similar safety profile to the normal seasonal influenza vaccine.
Swine influenza
Swine influenza is an infection caused by any one of several types of swine influenza viruses. Swine influenza virus (SIV) or swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV) is any strain of the influenza family of viruses that is endemic in pigs. As of 2009, the known SIV strains include influenza C and the subtypes of influenza A known as H1N1, H1N2, H2N1, H3N1, H3N2, and H2N3. The Swine flu was initially seen in humans in Mexico in 2009, where the strain of the particular virus was a mixture from 3 types of strains. Six of the genes are very similar to the H1N2 influenza virus that was found in pigs around 2000.
2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state
The United States experienced the beginnings of a pandemic of a novel strain of the influenza A/H1N1 virus, commonly referred to as "swine flu", in the spring of 2009. The earliest reported cases in the US began appearing in late March 2009 in California, then spreading to infect people in Texas, New York, and other states by mid-April. Early cases were associated with recent travel to Mexico; many were students who had traveled to Mexico for Spring Break. This spread continued across the country's population and by the end of May there were approximately 0 confirmed cases throughout all 50 states.
1_Apprentice
ok... how dangerous is the flu though?