Upper or lower resp tract

Type A: most common type

 Responsible for epidemics and pandemics
 Highly adaptive and constantly mutating
 Found in humans and many animals

Type B: milder disease

 Isolated primarily to humans

Type C: sporadic cases and minor outbreaks

 Antigenically stable
 Found in humans, pigs, and dogs

Two surface glycoproteins for type A

 Hemaglutinin (H): Viral attachment sites that bind to receptors on
respiratory epithelial cells
 Neuraminidase (N): Helps with viral replication

Transmission
 through inhalation of or contact with respiratory droplets
 Infectious period

Flu season in Northern America is usually between October and March – known
as a seasonal epidemic.

Children are two to three times more likely to contract influenza than adults.

Impact of viral infection

 Shut down of host cell protein synthesis
 Immune response

Clinical manifestations
 Result of the immune response
 Fever, chills, headache, myalgia, malaise, exhaustion, nonproductive cough
 Less commonly nasal congestion, sore throat, and watery rhinorrhea
Diagnosis
 Considerations for diagnostic tests

Treatment
 Symptomatic and supportive
 Pharmacologic therapies
 Flu complications: Secondary bacterial pneumonia because of altered
respiratory flora
 Prevention strategies
o Similar to common cold prevention
o Vaccinations for seasonal flu and H1N1 flu
 Process of vaccine development
o Egg allergy considerations
o Likely strain that we will see based on the previous antigenic
properties of the virus