In recent days, Riley has mentioned the first cases of “Fluorona” on several media and social networks. The word derived from English is a contraction between the word “flu”, meaning influenza, and the word “coronavirus”. So these are the people who have contracted both flu and Covid-19 simultaneously. There was no fusion between the two viruses, nor was there the appearance of a new “hybrid” virus, but this is a double infection with these two viruses at the same time. These simultaneous double transitions are not even “the first”. Similar cases have already been observed in the United States and elsewhere in the world in the spring of 2020.
On January 2, Israel announced that it had recorded its first case of “Fluorona”. Online media “The Times of Israel” reports statements from Israeli officials that an unrelated pregnant woman contracted both the seasonal influenza virus and COVID-19 at the same time.
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On January 5, CBS Los Angeles reported “the first case” of “Flurona” detected in Los Angeles. ,The patient was described as an adolescent with only mild symptoms and tested positive for both influenza and covis. He and his family had just returned from a trip to Cabo San Lucas, and were the only members to show symptoms. He is the only member of his family who has tested positive for both the viruses, but one of his parents has tested positive for Covid., specifies CBS’s California antennas.
Information is sometimes included in an accurate way
These cases of fluorona have been the subject of widespread media treatment in the world, but also in the French-speaking world. Online media have headlined articles citing a “fusion” between the two viruses, suggesting the emergence of a new virus and potentially worrying combinations of variants and viruses. Other media also insisted it was a “first”.
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On the social network Twitter, several users raised the reported case in Israel and mentioned that the country “Potentially generating a very dangerous recombinant virus,
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On Instagram, “HugoDécrypte”, known for its decoding of news stories for a younger audience, and which publishes a digest of daily news stories by selecting five news stories and creating a quick summary, also revealed Fluorona.
On 2 January, he resumed his digest of the news of the day, which identified the Florona case in Israel. He alludes to the word “merger” at the start of his second “news” of the day: “A case of ‘Fluorona’, a fusion between flu and coronavirus“, is recorded in Israel.
Very quickly, he was asked to correct the information in the comments to his publication. In the process, he revises the description of his digest of the day’s news, pointing out: “Important Clarification News 2: The word “merger” can cause confusion. As we say, this is a “double infection”, not a new virus.,
Co-infection with two different viruses and not a “fusion” of influenza and COVID-19
Indeed, this combination between the seasonal flu and COVID-19 is not called a new virus or a “fusion” of the two, but a “co-infection”. In other words, two viruses responsible for different diseases that affect the same person at the same time, and both of which are sources of pathology.
The word “flurona” is a pseudonym conceived to describe a double infection that occurs simultaneously and is derived from a contraction of the word “flu”, which is a shortening of “influenza” and “coronavirus”. Is. However, the term suggests that a new virus has been discovered, which is not the case.
Liberation question, tienne Decroli, director of research at CNRS in Marseilles and member of the French Society of Virology, believes that “This word is misleading”, What causes seasonal flu and covid-19 “two very different families of viruses”, “No proven risk of the emergence of chimeric viruses or of recombination between these viruses has been demonstrated to date”, Wants to reassure the virologist.
Co-circulation of respiratory viruses and progression of the omicron type, reinforced by relaxation of the barrier gestation, make up “potential“The Appearance of New Cases of Co-Infection,” S.over the years they become extremely frequent“, says the professor of virology.
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Furthermore, the description of these fluona cases raises questions about the potential severity of symptoms when a person is infected with influenza and COVID-19 at the same time.
,The disease is the same. They are viral and cause difficulty in breathing as both attack the upper respiratory tract“The director of the hospital’s gynecology department, Arnon Wijnitzer, told The Times of Israel. It was at his hospital that the pregnant young woman was admitted to the hospital.
The Israeli doctor also indicates that the patient has since been released from the hospital and doctors said she was in good general condition. The health ministry is nonetheless conducting a case study to see if the combination of the two viruses can lead to more severe disease and is trying to find out whether these cases of flu develop into severe forms of Covid-19. can promote. However, as cases are still relatively few listed, there is still a paucity of data on this topic.
No “First” globally
Separately, both The Times of Israel (Fluorona: Israel reports first case of a patient with COVID and influenza in English at the same time) and CBS (First case of Fluorona reported in Los Angeles from nearby COVID was found at the test site) Getty Center, in English) indicated in their titles that these were “before”. But if these are “firsts”, they are the first cases found locally or officially recorded in Israel, not the world “first” as some publications have suggested.
Indeed, The Atlantic reports that in February 2020, cases of “co-infection” with COVID-19 and influenza had been identified. Other cases have already been reported in France but also in Spain.
In a World Health Organization (WHO) publication dated 30 September 2021, the possibility that a person is infected with both COVID-19 and the seasonal flu virus is clearly mentioned. WHO adds that “Vaccination with both vaccines is the most effective way to prevent hospitalization and severe forms of COVID-19 and influenza.,
Monitoring coexistence of two viruses
Since the start of the pandemic, the coexistence of waves of seasonal flu and waves of coronavirus has raised some fears.
As the BBC points out, the concerns are not that they are two identical viruses, which they are not, but because both can cause saturation of a different health system, as they have already demonstrated.
If the 2020-2021 seasonal influenza wave in the world, and especially in the United States, was weakened by measures taken to fight the pandemic of Covid-19 and vaccination against “influenza”, it could be that influenza The virus is spreading more in 2022. Potentially many countries have eased health measures.
Although it is not a fusion between the flu and the coronavirus, the effects of a simultaneous double infection have not yet been studied scientifically. Finally, the coexistence of these two viruses and the resurgence of seasonal influenza in parallel with the COVID-19 pandemic is closely monitored by experts as the two viruses are likely to fill hospitals and put hospitals under pressure.
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