While flu circulates a lot this winter in France, it can be confused with other frequent diseases this season. The influenza epidemic has begun to reduce speed for a few days, but it is still very active, especially in children, according to the last public health bulletin France, which covers the week of January 27 to February 2.
Cough, fever, fatigue … The symptoms of the flu may resemble those of a cold or covid-19. How to differentiate them?
According to the health insurance site, the flu manifests itself in a high fever (around 39 ° C) accompanied by chills, intense fatigue with loss of appetite, diffuse muscle pain and articulation, headaches and a dry and painful cough .
Symptoms very similar to those of Covid-19, since those, in both cases, of “a viral respiratory infection,” explains health insurance. However, this emphasizes that some people evoke COVID-19 more, such as loss of flavor and smell. The only way to be sure of its diagnosis is to carry out a COVVI-19, laboratory or pharmacy detection test.
Additional symptoms for meningitis
Another disease has returned to the news in recent weeks. This is meningitis, who killed two people, a 17 -year -old teenager in Narbonne and an 18 -year -old woman in Rennes, at the beginning of the month. Some meningitis symptoms resemble those of the flu: headache, fatigue, pain and fever.
But others are different: meningitis can manifest by nausea or vomiting, a stiffness of the neck, important neurological symptoms (seizures for example) and the ailments of intense heads can be associated with intolerance to light or noise. It is diagnosed by a lumbar puncture and a blood test.
Gippana syndromes, difficult to differentiate
Flu symptoms can also be caused by other respiratory viruses that circulate during the same period. If the flu is the infection due to an influenza virus, whose symptoms are the same as those of influenza syndrome, an influenza syndrome is a set of symptoms (fever, respiratory signs, pain, headache) due to a Respiratory virus that can also be different from the flu, as explained by the Pasteur Institute in its place. This can be a syncitial respiratory virus (VRS), a rinovirus …
“I tend to tell my patients: ‘You have an influenza syndrome’, explaining that it can be covid, flu or many other viruses,” he said Parisian Jonathan Favre, general practitioner in Villeneuve-D’ASCQ (North), in January.
The only solution to make a precise diagnosis is to perform a pharmacy or a doctor. But existing tests (rapid diagnostic orientation tests, known as TROD and those that combine the detection of flu and COVID) are not 100%reliable, according to a notice of the high health authority of 2023. It is not mandatory to perform a test , From serious forms, flu, covid and influenza syndromes in general are treated in the same way: with rest and medications against certain symptoms (paracetamol for fever, for example).
Source: BFM TV
