Flu causes excruciating symptoms that people often dread. However, the most common mistake that people make is to generalize all flu types. This ignorance prevents them from taking a timely action and before they know it is something serious, it is already too late. More fatal forms of viruses spread rather quickly and are capable of causing an epidemic. There are different types of flu and you should be able to distinguish so as to prevent irreparable damage.
Different types of flu are as follows:
1. Seasonal Flu
As the name suggests, seasonal flu is a season based illness. It causes debilitating flu symptoms during a certain time of the year. It is more likely to happen during the months of weather changes i.e. arrival of monsoons followed by winters after a long dry spell of summers and during the onset of spring season after harsh winters.
Flu season is therefore different at different places in the world depending on the season’s occurrences. In the United States, typical seasonal flu months are October and April.
There are three viruses known that cause this type of flu. They are classified as follows:
a. Influenza A
Most cases of seasonal flu are caused by Influenza A virus. Depending upon the proteins, the virus is attached to, Influenza A virus can further be subdivided into two groups H and N.
There are 16 different types of hemagglutinin(H) proteins and 9 different types of neuraminidase(N) proteins that are present in the body. Combination of these actually decides the flu type like H1N1, H3N2 etc. However, please note that H1N1 flu type also commonly known as Swine flu though a type of Influenza A virus, but still not categorized as one because it is another type of virus that also combines swine and bird flu viruses.
b. Influenza B
It is another common type of virus causing flu like symptoms. Symptoms are more or less the same as those of Influenza A, just that this virus is not sub-typed further.
c. Influenza C
In this case, mild symptoms occur with primarily respiratory illnesses. This virus is not known to have caused any major flu epidemics. It is hard to distinguish the symptoms because the symptoms caused by this virus are typical to those caused by common cold.
2. Flu Pandemic
Pandemic is a term that is usually used to describe a worldwide outbreak of a disease or an illness. It is often interchangeable with the word epidemic, which refers to a sudden and severe outbreak, but is not necessarily worldwide.
Pandemic flu is a flu condition that travels across boundaries. There are mass outbreaks of this flu type that spreads around the world in relatively short duration of time. This flu condition often gets out of control because the speed at which it spreads outdoes the speed at which it is treated. This severe illness may account for numerous deaths. In 1918, there was a serious outbreak of the Spanish flu that killed millions of people.
3. H1N1 (Swine flu)
In the spring of the year 2009, a new type of Influenza A virus was discovered in Mexico that quickly spread throughout the United States, North America and around the world. It was found to be a combination of human, swine and bird flu and became the first flu pandemic the world had seen in over 40 years.
This virus was called ”Swine flu” as a result of which the pork industry all over the world suffered heavy losses. The name is still a mystery and a subject of contention because this virus is actually a mutation and has genes from human, swine and bird influenza viruses. So the term “swine flu” is not completely accurate. Moreover, as opposed to the misconception, swine flu is not caused from eating pork. H1N1 Swine flu is rather a respiratory virus that doesn’t get carried in the meat. Pork, if cooked properly is completely safe to eat.
Symptoms of H1N1 (Swine flu) are typically the same as those of seasonal flu. Fever, body aches, cough, cold, sore throat, headache, fatigue, vomiting, diarrhea are some of the most common symptoms. Medicines like Tamiflu and Relenza are found to make the symptoms less severe. There was also a vaccine developed for H1N1 swine flu in the month of October, 2009 when the virus first made its ugly presence felt in the US.
4. Bird Flu
H5N1 is the strain of influenza that is commonly known as bird or avian flu. It is normally only transmitted between birds but can be deadly if it is passed from birds to humans. The virus is transmitted through the saliva, nasal secretions, and feces of infected birds like chickens, ducks, and turkeys. People who are in constant contact with infected birds, poultry or virus contaminated objects and surfaces are at maximum risk. Bird flu is known to cause very serious illnesses, multiorgan failures and high death rates when it does spread to humans. An antiviral drug oseltamivir, is generally prescribed for the timely treatment of bird flu.
