At choo Is It a cold or the flu
When your nose is blocked, your eyes are watery, your throat is sore. you are coughing and sneezing constantly, and you are shivering, then you have influenza, or the flu. Or is it just a common cold? The symptoms of both a cold and the flu are very similar, and very often the two illnesses are confused.
People get both illnesses in more or less the same way. A person sneezing or coughing transmits the infection through the air. Sometimes people with the virus wipe their noses or eyes with their fingers, and then touch objects around them, such as a doorknob, a telephone, a keyboard or any other everyday object. Other people come into contact with these items with viruses on them, and pick up the viruses that way.
colds usually last for five to seven days and are caused by viruses. The body's own defense mechanisms need to fight the viruses. Unfortunately there are more than 80 different constantly mutating rhino viruses. So vaccination against colds is impossible. Medicines provide temporary relief from symptoms, but they cannot cure the cold.
The flu has the same symptoms as the traditional cold. Additional symptoms are a high fever and severe muscle ache and pains. The effects of the flu can also be far more serious. It the past, the flu Killed more people then any other viral disease. For example, 20 million people of all ages died in the 1919 flu epidemic. It actually affected younger people more than old because their bodies didn't have defenses against the virus. Nowadays there are vaccines for the flu that protect from some viruses. Unfortunately, new viruses appear all the time.