Health news blog

There is some confusion about influenza and this may come about because many people talk about the flu when what they are referring to is the common cold or other mild respiratory infections.

Real influenza is certainly not a mild illness. Epidemics and pandemics (that is, a worldwide epidemic) of influenza have spread even in ancient times.

The great pandemic of 1918-1919 claimed an estimated 20 million people, more than died in the Great War.

Influenza is caused by a virus of which there are three sub-groubs, À, Â and Ñ. Ñ virus is rarely isolated and does not cause epidemic influenza. Â virus may cause epidemics which tend to be milder than those caused by A virus and it is this last which causes the pandemics.

The incubation is short, some two to three days. The onset of the infection is abrupt with fever, headache, malaise, shivering and severe aches and pains in the limbs and back.

This is followed by a dry cough, a sore throat and other symptoms of a respiratory infection.

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It can be taken every eight hours (three times a day) and, because this is easier, more people are likely to take it properly. Ampicillin is marketed as Penbritin and Austrapen, and amoxycillin as Mox-acin and Amoxil.

The tetracyclines are a group of bacteriostatic antibiotics produced from a number of moulds. They have a wide range of activity against many organisms which are insensitive to penicillin.

These drugs are also active against some of the larger viruses and related organisms which fall between bacteria and viruses in their characteristics.

Bacteria are organisms with a cell wall containing the active ingredients of the cell. They are capable of independent reproduction.

Viruses are smaller particles without a cell wall and consisting mainly of RNA or DNA, proteins which make up the nucleus of cells and which contain the genetic material.

Viruses can reproduce only inside cells of the host but bacteria can be grown in the test tube, if suitable nutrient is available. A virus can grow only in a suitable cell culture, where it reproduces itself inside a living cell.

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