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The word influenza comes from the Italian word influenza, from medieval Latin influentia, originally meaning 'visitation' or 'influence'. Terms such as influenza di freddo , meaning 'influence of the cold', and influenza di stelle , meaning 'influence of the stars' are attested from the 14th century.
In the second week after receiving the flu shot, the body's immune system is triggered by the antigens so the body starts producing antibodies. These antibodies help fight against influenza viruses. Influenza symptoms and deaths can be prevented by getting an influenza vaccine every year. [ 2 ]
During the worldwide Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, "Pharmacists tried everything they knew, everything they had ever heard of, from the ancient art of bleeding patients, to administering oxygen, to developing new vaccines and serums (chiefly against what we call Hemophilus influenzae – a name derived from the fact that it was originally considered the etiological agent – and several types ...
Influenza-like illness (ILI), also known as flu-like syndrome or flu-like symptoms, is a medical diagnosis of possible influenza or other illness causing a set of common symptoms. These include fever, shivering , chills , malaise , dry cough , loss of appetite , body aches, nausea , and sneezing typically in connection with a sudden onset of ...
Flu season is an annually recurring time period characterized by the prevalence of an outbreak of influenza (flu). The season occurs during the cold half of the year in each hemisphere . It takes approximately two days to show symptoms.
[18] [19] [20] Influenza (flu) is more severe in the elderly than in younger age groups, but influenza vaccines lack effectiveness in this demographic due to a waning of the immune system with age. [ 7 ] [ 21 ] The prioritization of school-age children for seasonal flu immunization, which is more effective than vaccinating the elderly, however ...
Adjuvants commonly are used to boost immune response, particularly for older people whose immune response to a simple vaccine may have weakened. [36] The efficacy or performance of the vaccine is dependent on several factors: the disease itself (for some diseases vaccination performs better than for others)
Innate immune defenses are non-specific, meaning these systems respond to pathogens in a generic way. [19] This system does not confer long-lasting immunity against a pathogen. The innate immune system is the dominant system of host defense in most organisms, [ 2 ] and the only one in plants.