Is flu a cold？ What’s the difference with the common cold？

Original Chen mo mo duo la Wen Yao

Hello, I’m Chen Mo, a clinical pharmacist who wants to fill in all the knowledge of pharmacy.

Now is the outbreak season of influenza. Xiaobian has written several related tweets one after another, but the backstage still receives many readers’ questions, such as: What is the difference between influenza and cold? So, today we will explore this problem together.

01/

What is the flu?

First of all, the flu is a cold, but not all of it.

How can I put it? The full name of influenza is influenza, which is a highly contagious acute respiratory disease caused by influenza virus. Every year, it causes seasonal epidemic in the world, and can cause unpredictable pandemics, with a high incidence rate, posing a huge threat to human health.

To put it bluntly, influenza is an acute respiratory infectious disease with strong infectivity and rapid spread.

According to the antigenicity difference between nucleoprotein and matrix protein M1, influenza viruses can be divided into four types: A, B, C and D, and their characteristics are shown in Table 2.

Influenza viruses can be divided into four types: A, B, C and D (see Figure 1. Click to view a larger image). Among them, influenza A viruses, such as H1N1 and H3N2 subtypes, are more likely to spread rapidly among people because of their easy mutation or rearrangement, and many large-scale outbreaks of influenza in history are related to influenza A viruses.

Fig. 1. Pathogenic classification and characteristics of influenza virus. Photo production: Chen Mo Pharmacist

02/

The common cold

The common cold, which we often say, is a disease confined to the upper respiratory tract. Its clinical manifestations are nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat and cough, which can be caused by different kinds of virus infections. It is a self-limited disease, and the duration of symptoms is usually less than 10 days.

What are the common causes of the common cold?

The most common is rhinovirus (RV), others are coronavirus, parainfluenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenovirus and so on.

In addition, human metapneumovirus, enterovirus, mycoplasma pneumoniae and chlamydia pneumoniae infection can also cause cold-like symptoms. Other new respiratory viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2ο and δ mutant, can also be the cause of colds.

Cold like symptoms

Cold symptoms mainly include sore throat, sneezing, headache, general malaise, chills, fever, runny nose, nasal congestion and cough, among which nasal congestion and runny nose are the most prominent symptoms that make patients feel uncomfortable.

03/

The difference between flu and common cold

Here is a table to show (Figure 2. Click to view a larger image):

Figure 2. The main differences between influenza and common cold. Photo production: Chen Mo Pharmacist

——–See you next time.

Original title: "Is the flu a cold? What’s the difference with the common cold? (collectible) "

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