The influenza season is approaching, and it is the key to correctly understand the scientific prevention of influenza.
[Abstract] Every autumn and winter is the high incidence season of influenza. The national disease control department advises people to get influenza vaccine, but the current vaccination rate in China is relatively low, which is not enough to form crowd protection. Therefore, anti-influenza drugs are still an important supplementary measure for vaccines. Once infected with influenza virus, using anti-influenza drugs as soon as possible can effectively alleviate symptoms, reduce complications and reduce the risk of influenza virus spreading to others.
Every autumn and winter is the high incidence season of influenza, and the national disease control department advises people to get flu vaccine, but the current vaccination rate in China is relatively low, which is not enough to form crowd protection. Therefore, anti-influenza drugs are still an important supplementary measure for vaccines. Once infected with influenza virus, using anti-influenza drugs as soon as possible can effectively alleviate symptoms, reduce complications and reduce the risk of influenza virus spreading to others. To this end, the reporter interviewed pediatricians at the 29th Pediatric Academic Conference of Chinese Medical Association on the harm, prevention and treatment of influenza in children.
The high incidence of influenza is related to weather and crowd gathering.
Professor Zeng Mei from the Pediatric Hospital affiliated to Fudan University reminded that every year, autumn and winter alternate, and the climate begins to turn cold and become relatively dry. This climate is more conducive to the virus to become active, especially in winter and spring. In addition, every autumn and winter is also the school season. Children enter kindergartens and schools, and start a collective life. The crowd is relatively gathered and close contact is frequent. It is easy to spread and amplify when the flu begins to enter an active period. This is why the flu is popular at this time.
Children with different influenza types are prone to recurrent infection.
Professor Zeng Mei introduced that there are at least four kinds of influenza viruses: A, B, C and D. Generally, human diseases are mainly caused by type A and type B.. And A and B are also divided into different subtypes and subclasses. For example, influenza A viruses that cause human infection are H1N1 and H3N2, and influenza B viruses are Yamagata and Victoria subtypes, but different influenza virus subtypes are not protected by cross-immunity, which means that we are infected with a type of H1N1, and we may experience the infection of influenza A, H3N2 or B again in a flu season. Because in the whole flu season, there will be three or even four different flu subtypes epidemic alternately or successively, or overlapping epidemic, which makes children particularly vulnerable to influenza in this season, in the environment of collective life.
Many people think that a child who has had the flu once will develop immunity, so that he will no longer get the flu. Professor Fuzhou, a doctoral tutor at the Children’s Hospital affiliated to Chongqing Medical University, said that this is a misunderstanding. Influenza virus is characterized by frequent mutation, and children of different ages are susceptible. Moreover, after being infected with influenza, children’s virus detoxification lasts for a long time, has strong spread, and has a greater chance of reinfection. Therefore, vaccination with influenza vaccine can reduce the incidence of infection to some extent.
Many people think that preventing the flu means getting the flu vaccine. Professor Fuzhou said that even getting the flu vaccine can’t guarantee that you won’t get the flu at all. Every child’s immune response to vaccination is different, because each child’s immune ability is different. For example, the younger you are, the lower your ability to produce antibodies, and the older you are, the higher your immunity will be.
In addition to the vaccine, the innovative anti-influenza drug mabaloxavir, an RNA polymerase inhibitor, can be taken as early as possible within 48 hours of the occurrence of influenza, so as to shorten the course of the disease and alleviate the flu symptoms, and a series of physical protection measures can be taken, such as wearing a mask and washing hands frequently, which can reduce the risk of cross-infection. In addition, we can enhance the body’s immunity by taking exercise and other measures, so as to increase the ability to resist when infected with the flu.
Seasonal influenza can threaten children’s lives.
Both influenza and common cold belong to viral respiratory infection, but influenza is a legal infectious disease. People infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza and seasonal influenza are included in the management of Class B and Class C infectious diseases respectively. Influenza is the abbreviation of influenza. Different from other viruses, it has seasonal epidemic every year, with large epidemic range and intensity, long epidemic time, high susceptibility and strong infectivity. Compared with other common colds, its systemic symptoms are more obvious, such as high fever, headache, muscle aches and general weakness. The symptoms of the common cold are mild, mainly manifested as no fever or mild to moderate fever, slight cough, runny nose and other symptoms.
In addition, children’s influenza is easy to cause severe influenza, because children are frequently infected with influenza, and the immune system is not well developed (for example, the innate immune development is not perfect, and the inflammatory reaction is too strong), so in the process of infection, the ability to clear the virus is weak, and serious complications such as influenza encephalopathy and fulminant myocarditis are more likely to occur. .
Professor Zeng Mei warned that for children, the common complications of influenza include otitis media and pneumonia. When the seasonal influenza epidemic intensity is high, renal failure, explosive myocarditis, and even death and disability caused by influenza encephalopathy are frequently reported.
Once the flu is confirmed, families and schools should pay attention to it together.
Professor Fuzhou believes that once you have flu symptoms, you should go to the hospital in time. After diagnosis, family members should wear masks to reduce the risk of cross-infection. At the same time, taking anti-influenza drugs in time can not only shorten the course of disease, but also reduce the risk of transmission to others. Generally speaking, once the flu is diagnosed, it is contagious from the beginning of symptoms to the whole process of symptom recovery, which lasts at least one to two weeks. During the flu infection, don’t go to schools and other crowded places, so as not to infect more children, increase the spread area, and let the flu grow geometrically.
Huashang. com reporter Liu Yating