TLDR
First time listening to this podcast - While the hosts sounds great I’ve been kind of disapointed by the number of ads ran during a not-so-long podcast (45mins without counting breaks). It does not go into much scientific details and is more of a pass-through on this subject however this episode being a re-run it was shot before COVID hits which makes it interesting to hear such statement as ‘We would never have a pandemic like the Spanish-flu again’. Writing this resume and taking notes I’ve also came across numerous statement that are either false, misunderstood or not complete.
Summary
The Flu is an respiratory illness also known as ‘influenza’ which came from the Italian Influenza named after the Italian name.
Supposedly not something that affects your stomach - This is the first statement that I doubted, it could very well be a misconception on my side or that the flu doesn’t directly creates stomach pain but the inflammation does - After some research I find that reputable sources always mention respiratory disease and that it doesn’t not affect directly the stomach. Learnt something :)
Influenza can be transmitted to many animals like pigs, birds etc..
Richard Shope first isolated the flu virus in 1931 and started seeing different types of influenza virus, usually splitted into 4 types (and not three like said in the podcast) - A,B,C and D. A is the most common, B is almost only on humans.
The names of virus, like H5N1 are actually from the protein found on those strain, for example Hemagglutinin and Neuraminidase for H5N1.
The virus works by binding on the cell and transferring their RNA effectively hijacking the victim cells, that cell will now work on copying itself - This takes seconds.
When that first step happens you’re already infectious usually the day before the first symptoms and up to 7 days. Kids might be infectious for longer periods.
The infection will create an inflammation that moves to your bloodstream which in parts creates the symptoms.
When battling the flue you very suspectable to bacterial infection - When you body repress the fever it opens a door to infection that can lead to very serious health issues.
Diabetes and heart condition are common comorbitity for influenza.
The virus reassortment means that flu viruses can mix and match which can create another strand of virus. We used to think that these could only happen in vessels like pigs and birds.
We know have a global monitoring system that track seasonal flues. Using these systems we can try and predict which strand of virus would be dominant the following season - This is the flu virus that would be targeted by this year’s vaccine.
One information I had to fact check was the idea that a person who is allergic to eggs cannot get the vaccine. This was mind blowing to me and after some research this comes from how we create those vaccines, usually the virus is grown in an egg and so the idea that traces of egg could be in-half to trigger a severe allergic reaction.
The final words on how vaccine might have very different results year to year based on those prediction of dominant strains.