2024-01-14 03:10:12
Updated Sunday, January 14, 2024 – 02:10
In addition to flu and Covid, other pathogens circulate that can also make us sick
The theory of six degrees of separation states that any person on the planet is connected to any other person through a chain of acquaintances that would have no more than five intermediaries. Six links will be enough to connect you to another human being anywhere in the world.
If respiratory viruses were a chain, this winter one or two links would be enough to connect us to any other person anywhere in the Spanish geography, and these weeks the viruses are doing their thing like never before. Although when we talk about infections and respiratory diseases it seems that we only have the flu and Covid in mind, but in reality there are more viruses that are not exactly second-rate and that can also compromise our health.
Are there first and second class viruses?
Not exactly, what there are are viruses with a special virulence and a high pathogenicity. This means that they have the ability to cause significant damage to our body and to easily infect people once they come into contact with them. A virus with these characteristics is more harmful and dangerous, especially if a person with a compromised immune system or with multiple chronic pathologies that can be decompensated by this infection is infected with it.
Not everything is Flu or Covid
We tend to think that if we suffer a respiratory infection these days it will be flu or Covid, or even both at the same time, but nothing could be further from the truth. These weeks also have a lot of activity, others like the respiratory syncytial virus (VRS) and adenoviruses. The latter are a large and very contagious group of viruses and are responsible for the classic colds and pharyngitis so common in winter.
What if I take a pharmacy test?
Depending on the virus that accompanies you and causes those annoying symptoms, you will show your face or not. And there are also other respiratory viruses that do not show their face in the tests and are responsible for this quadridemy that we are living in Spain.
In the antigen tests sold in pharmacies we can check if we have influenza A, influenza B or Covid; But if it is an adenovirus or RSV then it will be negative even if we have symptoms and feel unwell.
If I test negative, am I no longer contagious?
This is not the case, and if we have symptoms of respiratory infection such as cough, nasal congestion, fever or sneezing and we take an antigen test prepared to discover if we have the flu or Covid and we test negative, that does not mean that we do not have nothing, it means that we have another virus that is not capable of locating that test. And yes, We would be infecting the people around us.
Is it possible to chain several respiratory infections?
Yes. We often meet patients who complain because when they finally get rid of a respiratory infection they relapse again with another one. I’m sorry to say that this is something perfectly possible, and first we can have, for example, a cold, then the flu, then another cold…
exist four types of flu viruses (A, B, C and D, although type A and B are the most common), several different strains of Covid (although the one with the greatest activity right now is Pirola) and about 200 different types of viruses that cause colds. If you’re unlucky, you can spend a lot of time chaining one after another.
Are all respiratory infections caused by viruses?
Almost all, specifically 70% of respiratory infections aren. But they can also be caused by bacteria such as S. Pneumoniae, responsible for a good part of pneumonia, or for example fungi such as Aspergillus or Zygomycetes.
Does the treatment change depending on the virus?
At first, no. The initial treatment, regardless of the virus you have, will be the same and will be aimed at relieve symptoms while we wait for the body’s defense system to do its job and finish it off. Only in the event that the infection becomes complicated, causes the worsening of other previous pathologies or causes other opportunistic infections to appear, will we be forced to apply more specific treatments.
#respiratory #infections #winter