Good to know – the difference between cold and flu
When you wake up sneezing, coughing and have that achy, feverish, can’t-move-a-muscle feeling, how do you know whether you have a cold or flu (influenza)?
Cold and flu are very common viral infections of the upper respiratory tract (i.e. nose, throat, ears and sinuses). There are hundreds of different types of viruses that can cause a cold. Flu is caused by a flu virus. There are three major virus types: type A (often the cause of flu epidemics), type B and type C.
The symptoms of a common cold usually arise slowly and tend to be mild while the onset of flu is mostly sudden and more intense (fever above 39°C, severe disease).
Although both diseases show quite similar symptoms, the impact of your general condition and your everyday life may be totally different. While cold symptoms can make you feel bad for a few days, flu symptoms can make you quite ill for a few days or even weeks. Flu can also involve a greater risk to result in serious problems, such as pneumonia which can lead to hospitalisation.
Cold and flu are very contagious, passed on from one person to another by droplet infection (airborne droplets – e.g. speaking, sneezing, coughing) or by direct contact (e.g. shaking hands, infection through touch). Usually your immune system is fit enough to cope with them. However, when your defence-mechanisms are weakened by external factors such as stress, insomnia or an unbalanced diet, infections can gain a foothold.
