FLU FACTS:

-Both colds and flu usually last the same seven to 10 days, but flu can go three to four weeks; the flu virus may not still be there, but you have symptoms long after it has left. Allergy can last weeks or months.

-The winter flu epidemic will be coming around us again and in a given locality it reaches its peak in 2 to 3 weeks and lasts 5 to 6 weeks.  Then is disappears as quickly as it arrived.  The reason for this is not completely clear.  The usual pattern is for a rise in the incidence of flu in children, which precedes an increase in the adult population.

-The flu virus can lead to serious complications, including bronchitis, viral or bacterial pneumonia and even death in elderly and chronically ill patients.  Twenty thousand or more people die of the flu in the America each year.  Know this that the frequency of human contact across the world and the highly infectious nature of the virus make this explanation difficult to accept.  Moreover there is no evidence of persistent or latent infection with influenza viruses.  In any case, this idea is not really very difficult from the notion that the virus circulates at a low level throughout the year and seizes its opportunity to cause an outbreak when conditions allow.

-Even harder to explain is why the flu disappears from a community when there are still a large number of people susceptible to infection. Than even harder than that is why flu is a winter disease, which is not fully understood or known.  However, flu is spread largely by droplet (aerosol) infection from individuals with high viral level in their nasal and throat secretions, sneezing, and coughing on anyone close at hand.  The aerosol droplets of the right size (thought to be about 1.5 micrometers in diameter) remain airborne and are breathed into the nose or lungs of the next victim.

-Situations in which people are crowded together are more commonly in cold or wet weather and so perhaps this contributes to spreading the flu at these times.  It is interesting that in equatorial countries, flu occurs throughout the year, but is highest in the monsoon or rainy season.  Enough about facts but onto logical thinking for when we or someone we know has it and what questions we might be asking ourselves.