Influenza: Complete Spectrum - II - ECAB Clinical Update: Pediatrics by M. Indrashekhar Rao ISBN 9788131229477, 9788131232576, 8131232573, 8131229475 instant download

Influenza: Complete Spectrum - II - ECAB Clinical Update: Pediatrics by M. Indrashekhar Rao ISBN 9788131229477, 9788131232576, 8131232573, 8131229475 instant download

Influenza has been described as the chameleon of viruses, the only known pathogen capable of producing a truly global catastrophe. Influenza virus has probably been in existence for nearly 4,500 years infecting humans since the first domestication of wildbirds,' but despite our medical advances, it still remains as 'the last great plague of man.'
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Influenza, though a self-limited illness in most, can cause serious complications in an infected child. The influenza virus is able to surmount the defense mounted by the human immune system due to its ability to mutate and undergo gradual antigenic change in the two surface antigens, hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA), known as the antigenic drift, producing new variant strains. The continuous process of antigenic drift ensures a constantly renewed pool of susceptible individuals. 
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Occasionally, when there is virus transmitted with a HA or a HA-NA combination that has not recently infected humans, the result is a very rapid global spread of infection leading to a pandemic. Influenza pandemics are typically characterized by the rapid spread of a novel type of influenza virus to all areas of the world, resulting in an unusually high number of illnesses and deaths for approximately 2-3 years.