Hydration, rest and ordinary medications; this is the recipe for treating flu

The flu is not here yet. However, many people from Varese have been knocked out by parainfluenza syndromes, due to bacteria, which give symptoms similar to those of flu, but which cause gastroenteritis, tonsillitis, pneumonia, which have nothing to do with the flu virus. The real flu is expected at the end of the month.

In preparation for the arrival of the flu peak, a number of guidelines should be considered that will enable you to deal with the problem better, and prevent unnecessary trips to the A&E Department. “Considering that the most effective means of preventing flu is vaccination,” explained Saverio Chiaravalle, the Director of the A&E Department of the “Sette Laghi” health authority, “if you should contract flu, with symptoms such as high fever, chills, headaches, muscle aches, coughs and sore throats, it’s important to remind healthy people that they need only resort to ordinary symptomatic treatments, without forgetting the importance of plenty of hydration and a few days rest. In this situation, it isn’t necessary to go to A&E. However, for the elderly with chronic, immune-depressed diseases, or who are bedridden, it’s important to remind them that their main person of reference is their GP: he will decide whether to send them to A&E. Indeed, going on your own initiative to A&E because of flu creates a double problem; firstly, for those who really need urgent care and, secondly, for the patients themselves who, inevitably, will have to give priority to those who need this service most.”

As for the flu vaccination, it should be noted that you are still in time to get vaccinated. “The flu peak is expected for the end of January,” explained Dr Augusta Diani, the Head of the vaccination department, “so until then, it’s a good idea to get the vaccine. Even after the peak, you can get infected, more or less until the end of February. And it’s been statistically shown that it’s towards the end of the epidemic period that we find the greatest complications. For this reason, those who haven’t had the vaccine yet can go to the vaccination department of our hospital.”

It is also important to mention the vaccinations administered to pregnant women in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, which are available for the first time this year, and which have received general consensus.