Flu May Be Airborne

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IF YOU HAVE FLU SYMPTOMS, DO EVERYONE A FAVOR AND KEEP YOUR ASS AT HOME

Flu may be spread just by breathing, new study says
http://www.mercurynews.com

Until now, most people thought you caught the flu after being exposed to droplets from an infected person’s coughs or sneezes, or by touching contaminated surfaces.

But a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that we may pass the flu to others just by breathing.

The study — which included researchers who are now working at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley — offers new evidence on the importance of the flu’s airborne qualities and how it can easily be transmitted to others. Researchers found large quantities of infectious viruses in the breath exhaled by those suffering from the flu.

“The study findings suggest that keeping surfaces clean, washing our hands all the time, and avoiding people who are coughing does not provide complete protection from getting the flu,” Sheryl Ehrman, who is now dean of the College of Engineering at San Jose State University, said in a statement. “Staying home and out of public spaces could make a difference in the spread of the influenza virus.”

Ehrman said the study was launched at the University of Maryland during the flu season of December 2012 through March 2013. Researchers including Jovan Pantelic, who now works at UC Berkeley, recruited 178 volunteers, mostly students, who had shown flu symptoms within three days of the flu’s onset.

Over those four months, researchers captured and characterized the flu virus in 142 of the volunteers with confirmed cases of the flu while they breathed naturally, talked, coughed or sneezed.

The researchers then assessed the severity of naturally occurring flu aerosols — tiny droplets that stay suspended in the air for a long time.

The study’s participants provided 218 swabs from their nasopharynx, the upper part of the throat that lies just behind the nose. They also provided 218 samples — over a period of 30 minutes — of exhaled breath, spontaneous coughing, and sneezing on the first, second, and third days after the onset of flu symptoms.

The analysis of the infectious virus recovered from these samples showed that a significant number of flu patients routinely shed an infectious virus into tiny aerosol particles that can be transmitted through the air.

Surprisingly, the study suggested that coughing or sneezing was not necessary to be infectious.

“We found that flu cases contaminated the air around them with infectious virus just by breathing, without coughing or sneezing,” Dr. Donald Milton, professor of environmental health in the University of Maryland School of Public Health, said in a statement.

“People with flu generate infectious aerosols even when they are not coughing, and especially during the first days of illness,” he said. “So when someone is coming down with influenza, they should go home and not remain in the workplace and infect others.”

The researchers believe that their findings could be used to improve mathematical models about the risk of airborne flu transmission from people with flu symptoms, and may help control and reduce the impact of influenza epidemics and pandemics.

Improvements also could be made to ventilation systems to reduce transmission risk in offices, school classrooms and subway cars, for example, the study said.

For now, the researchers — and public health experts — say everyone should heed the advice to stay home, if possible, when they’re starting to come down with the flu to prevent the virus from spreading.

And while getting a flu vaccine isn’t a guarantee that you won’t get the flu, experts say it provides some protection and helps reduce the chances that you’ll get seriously ill from the flu.

THE FLU VACCINE DID NOT WORK AT ALL THIS YEAR

Yes,thank you for posting this.Keep your sick ass at home,people are dying.
I haven't had the flu in closer to sixteen years,and I don't want it.

When I was taking care of my mom toward the end of her life, the one thing I worried the most about was all the trips to the clinic and hospital during flu season. She got a flu shot every fall. But like you said, having one is no guarantee you won't contract a nasty virus.

I drink tonics ,ginseng and golden seal and sanitize my hands.

Good advice.

The flu never scared me till a few years back.Some friends son took sick on Christams morning,they took him to the hospital and he died that night.A young healthy man gone before he was twenty.Scary,the first person I knew that died from the flu.
I just saw our county nurse in the feed store today,lots of sick folks in the county.
I never trusted the vaccine and have never had one.Never will.

I admitted a patient a couple weeks ago and the ER had done what is called a "rapid flu" test and it was negative for both A and B strains. She came up coughing up blood into a bag. After seeing that, I immediately put her in isolation, but I'd already been around her for about an hour. I sent down a respiratory panel test and I found out the next weekend when I came back to work that she had been positive for influenza A. Freaking ER doctors are about as dumb as they come.

I still remember when I had flu A about 6 years ago and since I live alone there was no one to help me. I kept having fevers so high that I was delirious. My whole bed was soaked because I would break fevers then get it again about 3 hours later. I wasn't even able to take a shower for over 5 days because I thought I would pass out. I'd call my Ma and not even know where I was. I told her if that happens again, then make sure someone comes and takes me to the damn hospital. It was almost as bad as when I had pneumonia, however, with the pneumonia I thought I was actually going to die. It was bad.

I've heard since this is a type A flu that it's worse for type A blood,that it attaches to the antigens in the blood.
This may be total BS,but the last time I got the flu it was a type A .Maybe I'm just paranoid.It was years ago and I was so sick I lost ten pounds in a week and couldn't walk without holding on to walls.Sick for a month.
I took care of my kids during the last bad flu epidemic a few years back and they looked bad,eyes sunken in,pale,dark circles under eyes.I pumped them full of fluids,good idea to keep pedialyte on hand right now.