2023-12-22 00:14:15
A persistent tiredness, that sore throat that seems endless, and the irritating cough that makes itself felt at the first hint of running or movement. It is the condition that more and more people are experiencing these days with the intensification of seasonal virus activity. “The ‘long flu’ exists, it is a condition that has been known for some time, even if Covid has had the effect of shining a greater spotlight on the post-virus phase, due to its impact. We will see many more cases” in these Christmas holidays in I arrive. “And it’s no longer easy to say whether it’s from Covid or the flu, because now it’s a big mix of pathogens at work.” Certainly “even young people end up in the grip of the aftermath, which lasts days or weeks after the actual respiratory infection”. The virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco outlines the picture at time.news Salute, while at an international level new studies highlight how it is not only long Covid but also the ‘long flu’ that prolongs the malaise, albeit in a different way, to infection archived.
What the study says
Already in October, a scientific work, published in ‘eClinicalMedicine’, had highlighted how both Sars-CoV-2 and non-Covid acute respiratory infections are associated with a wide range of symptoms more than 4 weeks after infection. acute infection. In these days of December, a new work returns to the topic, with a clear message: other viruses, even very common ones, can trigger long-lasting and debilitating symptoms. Published in ‘The Lancet Infectious Diseases’, the work also explores the risk of ‘long flu’ after a severe case. Ziyad Al-Aly, head of Research and Development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System and clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, using data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs with colleagues, compared long-term health outcomes of approximately 11 thousand people hospitalized with influenza from 2015 to 2019 with those of approximately 81 thousand people hospitalized with Covid from 2020 to 2022.
The researchers tracked those who developed one of 94 health risks associated with the two viruses in the year and a half after hospitalization. Compared with flu, people who had had Covid had a higher risk of 64 of the identified complications, including fatigue, mental health and lung, gastrointestinal and heart problems. They were also more likely to die during the study period. Those who had had the flu had an increased risk of only six health problems, most related to the respiratory and cardiovascular systems.
Ultimately, Al-Aly explained, “Covid is even worse than the flu”, both when comparing acute and post-acute phases. But in both cases long-term problems can be frequent. The researchers recorded around 615 health problems for every 100 people in the Covid group, compared to around 537 in the flu group.
“Long Covid is still a syndrome that is not well defined – observes Pregliasco – Even in terms of diagnostic definition there are different opinions, beyond the concept that it is something that continues. What happens to people who suffer from it is very varied : respiratory problems but also neurological problems, mental fog, and fatigue. To carry out studies on this condition, scientists sampled quite a few people to see the difference between those who were positive for Covid and those who were not. This is how attention has also turned to the long flu. By doing this, in fact, the experts have highlighted something that was known, perhaps quantifying it better, and confirmed that even respiratory forms of influenza can have an after-effect after the acute phase of respiratory symptoms “.
Long flu, what happens after the flu
How is the ‘long flow’ configured? “After the flu there may be a phase of convalescence, a prolongation, a symptomatology that lasts beyond the canonical 4-5 days, linked to the patient’s condition. Among the symptoms that do not end, for example, remains the sore throat which is a sign of the ‘wound’ in the broad sense. The infection is no longer there, but inflammation remains in the throat. The viral dry cough is also an irritant.”
Bacterial fat cough, on the other hand, continues the professor of Hygiene at the State University of Milan, “is the one that releases the mucus that is produced in excess in a clumsy attempt to eliminate the ‘bad’. The organism, when it has a “inflammation at the respiratory level, in fact sends the stimulus to produce too much and is a somewhat ‘Tafazzian’ reflex – he smiles – because it hurts itself. Instead, the dry cough is irritative, it is an expression of the damage of the virus to the respiratory wall and it takes time to heal even at the end of the actual infection.”
Then, Pregliasco lists, “there is also the component of tiredness, linked to the cytokine response. The cytokines that are ‘fired’ due to inflammation send messages that keep us still, they give a signal with the intention of keeping us at rest for recover your health. And avoid playing the virus’s game.” It is not easy, reflects the virologist, “to say how many end up in the grip of the ‘long flu’. There is no systematic case study. While on long Covid the various estimates indicate that before there were many more and now it could be around 20%” to suffer after-effects.
The message that emerges from the studies is, however, clear: “We take into account that even the flu is not a trivial disease and does not pass in a few days – concludes Pregliasco – that for the fragile it can be a risk but even a young person must maintain a period of common sense and reduction in performance. Long flu is in fact transversal: even young people must pay attention to the effects and take care of themselves well with responsible self-medication. The approach is for example the use of anti-inflammatories, but not to eliminate the symptoms, because this plays into the hands of the virus.”
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