The other viral: Seasonal illnesses see sudden peak

New Delhi: The change in Delhi’s weather has led to a surge in cases of influenza, marked by cold, cough, sore throat and fever, among others, symptoms similar to those for Covid-19. Due to these similarities, the doctors said that flu, otherwise considered a harmless viral infection, is causing panic among people.

“The mortality rate of flu is less than 0.1%, but people are frightened because its symptoms are similar to those of Covid, which has a mortality over ten times higher. In the case of the latter, recovery time is also longer,” said Dr Atul Gogia, senior consultant, internal medicine, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

Both Covid and flu, or the seasonal influenza, cause respiratory discomfort and are transmitted by contact, droplets and fomites. But, according to World Health Organization, there are important differences between the two viral infections and how they spread. “Influenza has a shorter median incubation period (the time from infection to appearance of symptoms),” says the world body.

According to the UN health body, data for Covid till date suggest that 80% of the infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe and require oxygen while 5% are critical infections, requiring ventilation. “While the true mortality of Covid will take some time to fully understand, the data we have so far indicate that the crude mortality ratio (the number of reported deaths divided by the reported cases) is between 3% and 4% and the infection mortality rate (the number of reported deaths divided by the number of infections) is lower,” says WHO. “For seasonal influenza, the mortality is usually well below 0.1%. However, mortality is to a large extent determined by access to and quality of healthcare.”

Those most at risk for severe influenza infection are children, pregnant women, the elderly, people with underlying chronic conditions and those who are immunosuppressed. For Covid, evidence so far suggests, elderly people and those with pre-existing illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension and heart diseases, among others, are at high-risk for developing complications leading possibly to death.

“For flu, there exists a preventive vaccine. We advise all elderly people and those at high-risk of developing complications to avail vaccination before the onset of winter. However, there is no preventive vaccine available for Covid as yet,” pointed out Dr Jugal Kishore, head, department of community medicine, Safdarjung Hospital.

Dr Charu Goel Sachdeva, head of internal medicine at Manipal Hospitals, added, “Measures like social distancing, hand hygiene and wearing masks can help prevent the spread of both flu and Covid.”

Dr Akshay Budhraja, consultant, department of pulmonology, Aakash Healthcare Speciality Hospital, said he has been getting one to two patients daily in the past few days with complaints of sore throat, sneezing and breathing difficulty.