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Prevention of influenza: consultation for parents from Evgeny Komarovsky
What is flu? How to avoid infection and what to do if the disease occurs? This was told by the famous pediatrician Yevgeny Komarovsky, the author of popular books on children’s and parental health, a man who has devoted 30 years of practice to the study of ARVI.
Influenza, otherwise ARVI is an acute respiratory viral infection. If you or your loved ones have caught the virus, remember the main thing: the tactics of action does not depend at all on what it is called – seasonal or swine. The only important thing is that it is a virus, that it is transmitted by airborne droplets and affects the respiratory system.
Prevention of influenza advice for parents
Start with prevention
If you or your child is exposed to the virus and there are no protective antibodies in the blood, you will get sick. Antibodies will appear in one of two cases: either you get sick, or you get vaccinated.
There is a possibility – vaccinate yourself and your children. But only on condition that you are healthy and if you do not have to be among the already sick people in the clinic for vaccination. This last point makes your chances of getting adequate vaccinations elusive.
There are no drugs with proven prophylactic efficacy. Onions, garlic and tablets are not able to protect against the respiratory virus in general and from in particular. The main benefit of all these remedies is psychotherapy: you believe, it helps you.
The source of the virus is man and only man. The fewer people, the less likely you are to get sick. Take the stop on foot, don’t go to the supermarket again.
Mask. A useful thing, but not a panacea. It must be on the sick person if there are healthy people nearby: it will not delay the virus, but it will stop the droplets of saliva, which are especially rich in the virus.
Always carry wet wipes with you.
The patient’s hands are a source of the virus no less significant than the mouth and nose. The patient touches his face, the virus gets to his hands and then to everything around him, spreading the infection.
Don’t touch your face and wash your hands more often. Learn for yourself and teach your children, if there is no handkerchief, to cough and sneeze not in the palm of the hand, but in the elbow.
Get yourself and your children vaccinated. But only on condition that you are healthy.
7. Viral particles remain active for hours in dry, warm and still air, but are destroyed almost instantly in cool, humid and moving air.
But you can walk as much as you like. It is almost impossible to catch a virus while walking. Get some fresh air and put on a mask before entering a trolleybus, subway, office or store.
8. Ventilate the rooms frequently and intensively. Optimum parameters: temperature about 20 ° C, air humidity 50-70%. Any heating system dries the air. It was the beginning of the heating season that marked the beginning of the epidemic!
Control humidity. Wash the floor. Turn on humidifiers. Urge humidification and ventilation of rooms in children’s groups. It is better to dress warmly, but do not turn on additional heaters.
The optimal parameters of the air in the room are a temperature of about 20 ° C, a humidity of 50-70%.
9. Mucous membranes located in provide local immunity. Dry air, as well as some drugs, can dry out mucous membranes (diphenhydramine, suprastin, tavegil, trifed, and so on).
How to moisturize mucous membranes
Dissolve 1 teaspoon of regular table salt in 1 liter of boiled water. Pour into any bottle with a spray bottle (for example, from under vasoconstrictor drops) and irrigate the nasal mucosa regularly (the drier, the more people around, the more often, at least every 10 minutes). For the same purpose, you can buy a physiological solution or ready-made saline solutions for injection into the nasal passages at the pharmacy – “Salin”, “Aqua Maris”, “Humer”, “Marimer”, “Nosol”, etc. Drip and spray also in the morning when you leave the house.
Moisturizing the nasal mucous membranes constantly will help fight infection.
When is treatment needed
The drugs that can destroy the influenza virus are oseltamivir, the brand name is Tamiflu, and zanamivir, but it is only used by inhalation. Tamiflu destroys the virus by blocking the neuraminidase protein (the same N in the name H1N1).
But do not use drugs for any sneeze. “Tamiflu” is used when the disease is severe (doctors know the signs of a severe respiratory illness) or when a person from the risk group – pensioners, asthmatics, diabetics – even easily falls ill (doctors also know who are at risk). The bottom line: if Tamiflu is shown, then at least a doctor’s supervision and, as a rule, hospitalization are shown.
Treatment for ARVI in general and influenza in particular is not about swallowing pills! This is the creation of such conditions so that the body can easily cope with the virus.
The basic rules of treatment
1. Put on warm clothes and keep the air in the room cool and humid.
2. Eat something light, , liquid.
3. Drink as much and often as possible. The temperature of the liquid is equal to the body temperature. , fruit drinks, tea. Ideal for drinking – ready-made oral rehydration solutions such as: rehydron, humana electrolyte, gastrolit, etc.
4. Spray saline solutions into the nose.
5. Banks, mustard plasters, poultices, foot baths are absolutely unnecessary procedures.
6. Paracetamol or ibuprofen will help fight high fever. Aspirin is strictly prohibited..
7. In case of damage to the upper respiratory tract (nose, throat, larynx), expectorants are not needed – they will only aggravate the cough. But the defeat of the lower respiratory tract (bronchitis, pneumonia) should be treated with appropriate drugs prescribed by a doctor.
8. Antiallergic drugs have nothing to do with ARVI treatment.
9. Viral infections cannot be treated with antibiotics. Antibiotics do not decrease but increase the risk of complications.
10. All interferons for topical use are drugs with unproven efficacy.
When treating the flu, your doctor will help create conditions for the body to cope with the infection.
Situations when you need to call a doctor:
– no improvement on the fourth day of illness;
– increased body temperature on the seventh day of illness;
– worse after improvement;
– severe severity of the condition with moderate symptoms of acute respiratory viral infections;
– the appearance in isolation or in combination: pallor of the skin; thirst, shortness of breath, intense pain, purulent discharge;
– increased cough, decreased productivity; a deep breath leads to a coughing fit;
– if paracetamol and ibuprofen do not help with an increase in body temperature.
Situations when an ambulance is required:
loss of consciousness;
convulsions;
signs of respiratory failure (shortness of breath, shortness of breath, feeling short of breath);
intense pain, anywhere;
even mild sore throat in the absence of a runny nose;
even mild headache combined with vomiting;
swelling of the neck;
a rash that does not disappear when you press on it;
body temperature above 39 ° C, which does not begin to decrease 30 minutes after the use of antipyretic drugs;
any increase in body temperature combined with chills and pallor of the skin.
We must firmly know and understand: snot, cough, temperature is SARS. The most common and mild illness. Requiring calmness and very specific, elementary actions.
Information source: komarovskiy.net