The swine flu, also called “new flu”, describes an infection with an influenza A (H1N1) virus, which can infect animals as well as humans. The term “swine flu” is somewhat misleading, since the virus itself was never isolated from a pig, but it is a mixed variant of viruses that could be isolated from infected pigs. The last time swine flu made the headlines was in the 2009/10 season, when a pandemic, i.e. a worldwide spread of the virus broke out and 226,000 confirmed cases occurred in Germany alone.
Twice before, variants of swine flu were documented. The first outbreak of the virus in humans was the “Spanish flu” of 1918. At that time about 50 million people died of the disease.
About 700. 000 people fell victim to the “Russian flu”, which is also due to a variant of swine flu. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the death toll of the pandemic in 2009 at about 18,400. Although the pandemic of the 2009/10 season has now been declared over, the swine flu virus continues to occur in Germany. Any illness, suspicion or death associated with the virus must be reported in Germany.
Symptoms
According to current knowledge, the symptoms of swine flu cannot be distinguished from the symptoms of seasonal flu. In most cases, the course of the disease is relatively mild, although severe courses of the disease have also been documented. In some cases, the infection with the virus was even a chance finding and thus proceeded without symptoms.
The exact differentiation between the different types of influenza virus cannot be made solely by observing the symptoms, but only by detecting the virus in a laboratory. The typical symptoms of swine flu are sudden onset of fever, which occurs in phases, dry cough, sneezing, aching limbs, headaches, extreme illness, fatigue, and a pronounced feeling of weakness. Symptoms which are in contact with the respiratory system are dry nasal mucous membranes or breathing difficulties.
In some cases, symptoms of the gastrointestinal tract may also occur, which can manifest themselves as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The frequency of gastrointestinal problems in particular can be an indication that an infection with the swine flu virus is present, as such symptoms are rather rare in an infection with the “normal” flu. Characteristic for the disease, as for all diseases with influenza viruses, is the sudden onset of the disease, which is dominated by high fever. This is one of the central distinguishing points that separates swine flu from a cold, also called flu-like infection.