Colds and flu often occur during the winter months. Symptoms such as runny nose, weakness, fever, cough both cause labor loss and become a potential danger to the people around us because of their high infectiousness. Although colds and flu are different diseases from each other, they are often treated without a differential diagnosis, as they lead to similar findings and both have viruses that are the causative agent of the disease.

Especially in our country, due to the fact that many drugs can be sold without a prescription, our people go to the pharmacy and unconsciously use antibiotics instead of contacting a doctor for these diseases. However, the factors that cause cold and flu diseases, namely viruses, cannot be treated with antibiotics.

What is the Flu?

Influenza is a disease that affects the respiratory tract and occurs with Influenza-type viruses. It is an extremely contagious viral infection. patients usually recover within 1-2 weeks, but the effects can persist for weeks.It occurs in the autumn-winter months and is one of the diseases that cause the highest cost from the point of view of labor loss.

At the same time, it can cause serious life-threatening illnesses in those with low body resistance, the elderly, those with diseases that impair the general condition, and some types of flu can lead to fatal complications.

90% of the organisms that cause colds are viruses, and about 200 types of viruses have been identified. The most common viruses that cause it are Rninoviruses, Coronaviruses, Parainfluenza, Respiratory syncytial viruses. Fever, headache, joint and muscle pain cause complaints November such as feeling tired, runny nose, sneezing, sore throat. As the disease of the person who breathes the same air when coughing or sneezing, as it can be transmitted through the spreading of viruses, recent studies the most common way of infection from the hands of infected secretions of an infected person to other people with their noses in infected and healthy people to carry it. Therefore, frequent hand washing is extremely important to protect against colds.

Since colds can be caused by many viruses, the body can never develop resistance to all of these viruses.

For this reason, colds can be passed on again and again every year. Factors such as upper respiratory tract allergies and psychological stress are very effective in the development of the disease rather than the cold weather. The common cold is a disease that is mostly overcome by simple measures and body resistance. However, a doctor should definitely be consulted when there are complaints of fever exceeding 39 C, cough that produces continuous or very thick sputum, pain when breathing, constant ear pain, swollen lymph nodes, difficulty swallowing, and severe pain.

The flu, on the other hand, is a disease that is more severe than a cold, often causes fever and body aches, headache, cough, fatigue symptoms that last for 2-3 weeks. Although it is not possible to protect against colds, it may be possible to protect against flu with vaccines.

As a conscious society, we should know that antibiotics do not affect viruses and that using antibiotics to recover from these diseases will cause both financial losses and harm to public health due to improper use of medications.

If the changes I mentioned above occur in our complaints, we should definitely consult a doctor. Your doctor may sometimes recommend antibiotics due to bacterial infections that may develop in October in addition to the common cold. But this type of treatment should definitely be started when necessary and by a doctor. We should not use antibiotics without a prescription for both our own health and the health of future generations, and we should take precautions to protect ourselves from the flu, which leads to financial and labor losses.