INFLUENZA
Posted on Mar 23, 2009 under Herbal | No CommentInfluenza is another viral disease that follows a similar pattern to the common cold. After initial exposure to flu virus, it takes two to three days for influenza symptoms to appear. Most cases of flu are spread by airborne transmission during the three days following the first appearance of symptoms. However, many victims remain contagious for several additional days. Influenza symptoms appear more swiftly than do cold symptoms and they strike with greater severity. Unlike a cold, which is localized in the upper respiratory tract area, influenza is a more widespread disease with considerable potential for serious complications.
Almost without warning, a well person is suddenly shuck by shivering and chill, body aches and pains, a headache, extreme fatigue and a fever with temperatures ranging over 101°F in adults and as high as 104° in children.
The spherical flu virus contains a genetic package similar to that of a cold virus. But its protein coat is also covered with fat and studded by spikes. To outwit patrolling macrophages, flu virus populations undergo a constant change of antigens induced by a gradual but steady mutational drift.
As the human population builds up antibodies to a flu outbreak, the mainstream flu virus is annihilated. Only mutants with different antigens are able to survive. These mutants then multiply to become the mainstream flu virus.
Nonetheless, their antigens still so resemble those of the earlier strain that they are partially affected by antibodies left over from the last flu infection. As a result, new strains of influenza resulting from mutational drift are relatively mild. They rarely present a serious threat to healthy adults or children and medical treatment is seldom required.
Every so often, a strain of flu virus seems to disappear from the human population. Some researchers speculate that it may spend several years submerged in animals such as swine or ferrets. While in the animal kingdom, this virus undergoes a spontaneous mutational shift so radical that its antigens become completely immune to all existing human antibodies.
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