Getting sick is no fun, but it happens to the best of us. Although they’re more common in the winter, colds and flus can hit us at any time of the year. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the two.

The basic difference between the cold and the flu is that they are caused by different viruses. The flu is always caused by a strain of either influenza A or B. The common cold, on the other hand, can be caused by hundreds of different viruses. To those of us outside the medical profession, however, this explanation doesn’t mean much. The easiest way to know whether you have a cold or the flu is to analyze the symptoms. Here is a quick list for each illness:

Cold

* A cough is usually present, and in most cases it is productive.

* Sneezing, stuffy nose and sore throat are common.

* Fever usually does not occur, and if it does it is not high.

* Symptoms usually come on slowly, often over the course of a few days.

Flu

* A high fever, usually between 100 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit, is usually present, and may be accompanied by chills.

* The cough is dry and unproductive.

* Fatigue and muscle aches are usually present, and are often severe.

* Headache and chest discomfort often occur.

* Symptoms set in quickly, usually within a few hours.

Treatment of the Cold and Flu

There is no cure for the common cold. Aside from prevention, the best treatments are rest and over-the-counter medications for bothersome symptoms. The cold should go away on its own within 10 days. If symptoms persist for more than 14 days, it’s a good idea to see a doctor to determine whether a bacterial infection is present.

Doctors can quickly determine whether or not you have the flu with a simple test. If caught early, it can be treated with prescription medications that may reduce its severity and duration. Whether flu medicine is used or not, it is important to get plenty of rest and drink lots of fluids until you’re feeling better, usually within a week or two without antiviral treatment. The flu can result in pneumonia and other infections, so it is very important to follow your doctor’s advice.

Flu vaccines can help prevent the flu, but they are not always effective. They only contain selected strains of the flu, and if you are subjected to a different strain, you could still catch it. If you choose not to get the flu shot, staying as healthy as possible will help reduce your chances of becoming infected. And if someone in your household gets the flu, you can ask your doctor for antiviral medication to help keep you from getting it.

While having a cold is unpleasant, having the flu is usually much worse. Knowing the symptoms can help you decide when you need medical attention and when you can successfully treat yourself. But if you are in doubt, it’s better to visit the doctor just to be sure.

The flu can be a dangerous illness, especially for children. Because of smaller body size, and developing systems, children are at an increased risk with regards to all the symptoms of the flu. Adults usually don’t get the stomach-related symptoms that deprive a child of nutrients when they need them most.

Treating the Flu Conventionally

If your children contract the flu, it is vital for them to get plenty of rest. Don’t allow them to engage in strenuous exercise or play. Even if they do not feel fatigued for the first few days, be firm. The body must be in a state of rest if it is to cope with the sickness brought by the virus.

Don’t forget to give your children plenty of fluids. Water is especially helpful, as are isotonic sport drinks. Because children with the flu can also get diarrhea, replacing lost salts and water soluble vitamins is crucial to their recovery. If your children use alcohol or tobacco, you will need to see to it that they stop. Both these substances cause damage to the immune system, thereby making the entire flu experience worse.

Children and teenagers should also avoid taking aspirin when they have the flu, even if there is a fever. Taking aspirin during the flu can lead to Reye Syndrome, a rare but potentially fatal liver ailment. Also, while not generally known, fevers can assist the body in fighting off infection, influenza included.

The Use of Medication

There are three antiviral drugs approved for the purpose of preventing the flu. These are oseltavimir, rimantidine, and amantadine. All three are prescription drugs and thus require the recommendation of a doctor before they can be consumed. Another drug, zanamivir, has been approved in the United States for use in the treatment of the flu.

Giving medications to children should be done with a great deal of thought, and consult with a pediatrician. Many stores offer over the counter remedies. There are special children’s formulas of over the counter flu medicines available that may be of some help to your child. These can help treat the aches, fatigue, coughs, and respiratory problems associated with the flu. Unfortunately, these medicines do nothing against the root of the problem, which is the reproduction and subsequent spreading of the virus itself.

When it comes to children, it is best not to experiment with “alternative” flu treatments that may have worked for you or another family member. Many of these treatments have not been tested, let alone approved by a regulatory agency. Thus their true reliability and efficacy is unproven; as is the ability to predict long term consequences to a developing body. In addition, the doses commonly available are not made with children in mind. While over the counter medicines and prescription drugs have many side effects, that information is well known by the doctors that recommend them. Perhaps one day robust clinical trials will be performed on homeopathic remedies, and they will be found safe and useful for children. Until then, it is best to go with what is known by licensed medical practitioners.

Swine Flu is a respiratory disease in pigs triggered by a virus called H1N1. The new strain of H1N1 is a deadly combination of viruses from pigs, birds and humans. They symptoms of Swine Flu are sudden fever, coughing, extreme exhaustion and muscle aches. There is also diarrhea and vomiting more than normal flu.

Risk factors: Medical experts say that people, who are exposed areas where pigs flock are at risk of contracting the virus. The strains of Swine flu rarely pass on from humans to humans. In rare cases, the virus mutates into a form that can move from one person to another. The strain responsible for the 2009 swine flu outbreak has apparently undergone such a mutation and may stay like that for a longer period of time.

Can Swine flu be prevented or cured? There is no vaccine which can prevent swine flu. Medicines like Tamiflu and Relenza can be effective, if taken in the early stages of the disease.

Is it safe to eat pork? Swine Flu is not caused by eating pork or its products including salami, ham and sausages. However, it is a good practice to cook pork over 70 degrees C, which kills the virus.

Why is it called swine flu? The virus is called swine flu because one of its surface proteins is similar to viruses that usually infect pigs. Pork industry in the US are putting pressure on the officials to change the name of the disease, because no pig as such have been found infected with this particular illness which has spread among humans.

With the alarming number of people being infected by the recent global outbreak of Swine Flu virus, local health officials and ordinary citizens alike are taking precautionary measures to prevent further spread of the virus. But what is Swine Flu and how does it spread? Can it be prevented?

Influenza or Flu is a virus that infects people as well as animals like birds, cows, and pigs. Porcine Influenza or Swine Flu is a form of virus that affects pigs. There are many types of flu and some types have evolved the ability to exchange genes with different varieties. The kind of flu that originated in Mexico is a genetic combination of viruses present in birds, and pigs, and humans. It has been labeled Swine Flu because the make-up of the virus is largely similar to the type that affects pigs, while it can affect humans it has been rare until recently.

Swine Flu per-se does not tend to affect humans, unless they have an intense and prolonged exposure to affected swine and that swine carries a strain of Flu that can affect humans. Historically affected people have been incapable of passing Swine Flu to other humans. Also there is no reported link to eating pork as a spreading factor of the virus. For these reasons the recent Swine Flu outbreak is believed to be the result of a virus that has undergone mutation.

The symptoms of Swine Flu

It can take one to four days for a healthy person to feel the symptoms of Swine Flu, from the time of infection. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US, the symptoms of Swine Flu in humans are similar to that of other influenza and influenza-like illnesses. They tend to include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, head aches, chills, and fatigue. The recent Swine Flu outbreak reporting also highlights an increased number of sufferers experiencing diarrhea and vomiting, leading to dehydration and resulting in further strains on the body to repair itself.

Prevention is better than Cure

Vaccination in the past has had positive results dealing with some strains of the influenza virus, and scientists expect to deliver a response to the latest outbreak in early May. Apparently only a couple of months are needed before shots and oral meds will be available for testing.

While there is no cure for Mexican Swine Flu, medical practitioners are recommending the use of Antiviral drugs like Oseltamivir and Zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention from infection by Swine Flu viruses. Antiviral drugs are prescription medicines in pill and tablet form, liquid solutions, or inhalers which fight flu by preventing the virus from reproducing on your body.

Tamiflu is a great example of Oseltamivir. It’s a specialist medication created for treating influenza in its most virulent forms. The active ingredient in Tamiflu is presently the best-known defense against a flu virus attack. The flu virus replicates and spreads in the human body through a protein called Neuraminidase and Oseltamivir blocks the action of this protein. This is why Tamiflu is an extremely effective medicine for influenza.

So, if you are in an area affected by Swine Flu, or you are planning to protect yourself and your loved ones against it, consider why you might buy Tamiflu.

A government report says an outbreak could kill 2 million people and lead to quarantines, travel restrictions and an economic downturn.

The White House on Wednesday unveiled a foreboding report on the nation’s lack of preparedness for a bird flu pandemic, warning that such an outbreak could kill as many as 2 million people and deal a war-like blow to the country’s economic and social fabric. It urged state and local governments to make their own preparations beyond the federal efforts.

In the government’s first detailed look at the potential effects on public health and U.S. society as a whole, the report said a full-blown pandemic could lead to travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines, massive absenteeism, an economic slowdown “and civil disturbances and breakdowns in public order.”

It warned that the healthcare system – including doctors, nurses and suppliers of pharmaceuticals – was inadequate to meet the country’s needs in a flu pandemic. “In the event of multiple simultaneous outbreaks, there may be insufficient medical resources or personnel to augment local capabilities,” the report warned.

More broadly, state, local and tribal governments should “anticipate that all sources of external aid may be compromised during a pandemic,” it said, meaning that “local communities will have to address the medical and non-medical effects of the pandemic with available resources.”

While warning that as a last resort, mandatory travel restrictions may be necessary, such limits alone “are unlikely to reduce the total number of people who become ill or the impact the pandemic will have on any one community.”

Some observers welcomed the report’s blunt tone.

Michael Osterholm, an expert on disease control who has long warned that the nation is ill-prepared for a bird flu pandemic, praised the 234-page report as “a very important step forward.”

“This was a brutally honest but very fair … assessment of where we’re at,” Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in a telephone interview. He said he had no role in preparing the report.

The document includes the White House Homeland Security Council’s plan to implement a national strategy in the face of a flu pandemic, for which Congress appropriated $3.8 billion in December.

The strategy is built around three elements: preparation, surveillance and detection, and containment. And the report listed more than 300 steps that it said the administration would take, had already begun to take, or would recommend that state and local governments pursue.

In a cover letter, President Bush said the government had made “major investments in vaccine and antiviral development, research into the influenza virus, surveillance for disease in animals and humans, and the local, state and federal infrastructure necessary to respond to a pandemic.”

But the report indicated that only a bare beginning had been made thus far on preparing for the kind of large-scale, months-long disaster a flu pandemic would represent.

And critics were quick to attack what they said was the administration’s slow response.

As Frances Fragos Townsend, the president’s domestic security advisor, presented the report, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the senior Democrat on the Senate Health Committee, issued a report of his own that chastised the administration for what it said was a failure to prepare the country for a flu pandemic.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Kennedy said the administration suffered from “competence-deficit disorder,” and said the White House report represented the third attempt to write a flu plan.

“No amount of revision can disguise the fact that other nations have been implementing their plans for years, while we are waiting to read ours for the first time today,” Kennedy said. “The United States is at the back of the line in ordering essential flu medicines, and we’re at the bottom of the international league in having a coordinated national strategy.”

There have been no verified incidences of bird flu in either wild birds or domestic poultry in North America, and spread of the disease from human to human has not been documented.

But, the report said, scientists believe birds played a role in two global influenza pandemics in the last 50 years that killed millions of people. It said that since the influenza strain known as H5N1 appeared in humans in Hong Kong in 1997, it has spread across Asia and into Africa and Europe and has infected more than 200 people, killing more than 50% of them.

For the Bush administration, the report represents an opportunity to demonstrate an effort to prepare for a potential catastrophe after the criticism it suffered for its response to Hurricane Katrina at the start of its second term, and, four years earlier, the intelligence failures that were blamed for not securing the nation against the Sept. 11 attacks.

Looking at specific demands that a pandemic would impose on the nation, the report said that workplace absenteeism could reach 40%.

To illustrate what the effect of such high levels of absenteeism could mean, Osterholm said that the oil industry had reported in one preparedness seminar that its refineries could not function if 30% of workers were absent – a figure suggesting that a pandemic could have a domino effect across the economy.

Although praising the study for “educating the government and hopefully the public that the pandemic is not just a health emergency,” Kim Elliott, deputy director of the health policy nonprofit Trust for America’s Health, said it failed to address the cost of implementing it.

She said Congress’ appropriation covered barely half of the $7.1 billion that Bush said last year would be needed.

To make sure you are fully prepared for the crisis check out : Bird Flu Preparations