Flu prevention
How to increase immunity
What harms the immune system, and what, on the contrary, helps to increase it? Read our list simple recommendations.
What should I do to avoid getting sick?
There is an element of luck in not getting the flu, but you can get sick easily and transfer the infection asymptomatically, or you can be hard. The easiest people to get sick are people who came to the beginning of the flu epidemic healthy.
Therefore, seemingly banal arguments about a healthy lifestyle become important. For example, those who do not smoke, according to statistics, the risk of getting the flu is much lower than that of active smokers.
In your daily diet, include foods rich in vitamins – these are seasonal vegetables and fruits, in which the concentration of useful substances is still maximum. As well as food rich in full-fledged protein, containing essential amino acids necessary for the formation of antibodies.
Try to get enough sleep-at least 8 hours for an adult, and be in the fresh air everyday .
How to behave if the epidemic has already begun?
"Try to avoid all kinds of public events. This is especially true if you have young children – they get sick more often, faster and carry the flu harder than adults."
The flu virus is spread only by airborne droplets. Especially dangerous are particles of saliva and mucus when a sick person sneezes and coughs. If someone in your household is still ill, convince them to wear a mask.
If the patient can not wear it, put it on yourself – this is not too reliable, but still a real protection against the virus entering the body through the respiratory tract. But do not forget to change it regularly – after 2-2. 5 hours, it ceases to perform its functions. And even on the contrary-it itself becomes a source of infection due to the accumulated moisture from breathing.
Be sure to wash your hands and face after visiting public places. Wash the dishes with disinfectants, ventilate the apartment more often during the " flu " period.
If the virus still caught up with you, be polite to others. Buy disposable handkerchiefs or just a pack of paper napkins — after using them, you can immediately throw them away.
Even if you are recovering, refrain from receiving guests and contact with people with weak immune systems or young children – do not become distributors of the flu virus.
Do I need to get vaccinated?
Flu vaccination is quite a justified measure. Its effectiveness is about 70 percent, which means that seven out of ten vaccinated people will not get sick.
And for some segments of the population, it is simply vital. For example, for elderly people who have chronic diseases.
Of course, old people are less likely to get the flu than young people, because they do not encounter carriers of the virus on a daily basis on public transport or at work. But each case of the disease threatens an elderly person with complications from their chronic diseases, and so serious that the case can end in death. Most often from pneumonia or disorders of the cardiovascular system."
Why not treat the flu with antibiotics?
They have absolutely no effect on the virus. Usually they are prescribed already in the hospital, where a person in a fairly serious condition is admitted on the third or fourth day of the disease-to prevent complications.
But you can not start taking antibiotics without control in any case-such powerful drugs are prescribed only by a doctor.
Let's sum up the results
This year, scientists do not predict a serious flu epidemic in Russia, but we must prepare for the appearance of the virus. People who lead a healthy lifestyle and are regularly vaccinated against this seasonal disease are much less likely to get sick.
