Introduction
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), from information on their website, the "flu season" runs from late fall to early spring. The flu is an illness caused by infection by the influenza virus. There is usually about 200,000 hospitalizations and about 36,000 deaths from the flu every year in the United States, according to the CDC. In 2009, the picture worsened with the appearance of a novel type of Influenza virus, popularly called the swine flu. Data available on Fluview (a weekly updated CDC website) demonstrates higher rates of illness and mortality in 2009 than usual, with 99 percent of all flu cases belonging to the H1N1 type of influenza virus, which is also known as the swine flu virus. This also reflects the 2009 worldwide pandemic scenario of the swine flu.
How Swine Flu Is Contracted
According to Flu.gov, the official U.S. government flu website, swine flu spreads much the same way the flu is spread. It is spread by droplets in the air from sneezing and coughing. The flu virus attacks the cells lining the respiratory system. The virus attaches to these cells by special receptors on its coat, which it changes from year to year, making yearly repeated vaccination necessary. On entering the cells, the virus co-opts the cellular mechanisms to produce viral components that are assembled in the cell and released when the cell dies. These viruses are then available in large quantities in secretions of the respiratory tract. A cough or a sneeze releases a large amount of these infective viral units in droplets of the secretions. The viruses are available for release from one day before the carrier feels ill to up to five days after symptoms of illness appear. Thus a sneeze from a "perfectly healthy" passenger on a crowded commute can be infective. The virus can survive outside the body for a short while. This means that released droplets can stick to skin and surfaces like door handles and public telephones.
You can contract the swine flu by inhaling infective droplets released from someone carrying the virus. Touching infected surfaces or non-living material contaminated by droplets from an infected carrier puts the virus on your hands and in very high likelihood of an infection when you touch your nose, eyes or mouth. Once the virus gains entrance to the system, it rapidly multiplies. The period from infection to actual manifestation of illness, also known as the incubation period, is typically short (18 hours to 36 hours). The body's response to the presence of the virus and its activities is manifested by fever, weakness, body pains, nasal congestion, coughing, sneezing, watery eyes and, peculiarly to swine flu, diarrhea and vomiting.
How To Avoid the Swine Flu
The virus is best avoided by receiving a vaccine, the flu shot, which boosts the body's immunity specifically against the virus. Other recommendations by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services available on the Flu.gov website include frequent hand washing or use of alcohol-based sanitizers, avoiding touching your eyes, nose or mouth in public places and staying away from public places when ill. Proper disposal of used napkins and sneezing or coughing into the bent elbow, instead of the cupped hand, are further recommendations to check the spread of the virus. Avoiding sick people and using a mask when attending to the sick will further reduce the chances of contracting the illness.
