Seasonal flu and the coronavirus pandemic
The cold season brings an increased risk of flu viruses overlapping the new coronavirus. Romanian doctors recommend that people get a flu vaccine.
Corina Cristea, 13.10.2020, 13:50
Centralized results at global level show that in 10 months since the reporting of the first contamination with SARS-CoV-2, the number of COVID-19 cases has exceeded 38 million, with the associated deaths going over 1 million. Finding a vaccine is vital, and while waiting for it, doctors are doing their best to save as many lives as possible.
According to the most optimistic estimates, a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine might be released in several months, but the epidemiological situation is far from reassuring, given that the number of infections is growing considerably by the day, after a period when the contamination rate was on a downward trend. Around 3 thousand new COVID-19 cases and scores of deaths are announced daily in Romania. Hundreds of patients are in ICUs and the coming cold season is reason enough to worry, given the rise in seasonal flu cases.
The flu vaccination rate in Romania is below 8%, in the context in which experts recommend a 75% immunization rate. Doctor Adrian Marinescu with the ‘Matei Bals’ Institute in Bucharest told Radio Romania that the people who get infected with both the flu virus and the new coronavirus might develop more severe forms of COVID-19.
Doctor Marinescu has explained that although flu vaccination is very important, it does not immunize the body against the new coronavirus: “There is no proof of a connection between flu viruses and the coronaviruses group to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs. If people get flu vaccine, they will be better because they won’t get the flu. There is no scientific proof of any link between the two categories of viruses. The new coronavirus can pick up mutations at any time, even major mutations. These changes occur quite fast and they need to be documented. For instance, at present we know that probably in the US and Europe there is a coronavirus type which is more contagious but not more aggressive. This is why we are talking about a second wave of the pandemic and about the way people get infected now.”
Flu vaccination is the more so important during a pandemic, doctors say, because the combination of the two types of viruses is more likely to cause severe forms of COVID-19 or flu, especially in the vulnerable category: old age and chronic diseases. (tr. L. Simion)
