What is positive influenza A? (2023)

What does a positive influenza A mean?

A positive test result means you may have the flu. It's possible to have a false positive, which means your test says you have the flu, but you really don't. Depending on your health, your provider may prescribe medicine to help prevent the flu from becoming a more serious illness.

Diagnostic tests available for influenza include viral culture, serology, rapid antigen testing, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), immunofluorescence assays, and rapid molecular assays.

About a week. Typically, you're contagious from 1 day before you have any symptoms. You stay that way for 5 to 7 days after you start feeling sick. Kids and people with weak immune systems may shed the virus even longer.

Outlook. Type A influenza is a contagious viral infection that can cause life-threatening complications if left untreated. While some cases of this infection can improve without prescribed medication, a visit to your doctor is recommended.

Uncomplicated influenza signs and symptoms typically resolve after 3-7 days for the majority of people, although cough and malaise can persist for >2 weeks, especially in elderly people and those with chronic lung disease.

Yes. There are prescription medications called “influenza antiviral drugs” that can be used to treat flu illness. Antiviral drugs work best when started early, such as one to two days after your flu symptoms begin.

Stay at home and reduce the risk to others

If you are sick with flu, stay at home and avoid close contact with other people. Keep sick children away from school and other activities. To avoid infecting others, stay at home for at least 24 hours after your fever has resolved and until you are feeling well.

The flu is very contagious. People can spread it from a day before they feel sick until their symptoms are gone. This is about 1 week for adults, but it can be longer for young kids. The flu usually happens in annual epidemics.

CDC recommends that workers who have flu symptoms upon arrival to work or become ill during the day should promptly separate themselves from other workers and go home until at least 24 hours after their fever is gone without the use of fever-reducing medications, or after symptoms have improved (at least 4-5 days after ...

Most symptoms go away in 4 to 7 days. The cough and tired feeling may last for weeks. Sometimes, the fever comes back. Some people may not feel like eating.

How accurate is Influenza A test?

Most of the rapid influenza diagnostic tests that can be done in a physician's office are approximately 50-70% sensitive for detecting influenza virus antigens and greater than 90% specific. Recently the FDA has reclassified the RIDTs and published requirements for improved accuracy, including higher sensitivity.

COVID-19 appears to be contagious for a longer time and to spread more quickly than the flu. With COVID-19 , you may be more likely to experience loss of taste or smell. Severe illness is more frequent with COVID-19 than with the flu.

You should make a full recovery within 2 weeks – while your body may have fought off the infection successfully, you may not feel 100% for up to 2 weeks after being infected. Most of your symptoms should have subsided by this point, but it's normal to feel weak and tired while your body recovers from the infection.

Usually, you'll need nothing more than rest and plenty of fluids to treat the flu. But if you have a severe infection or are at higher risk of complications, your health care provider may prescribe an antiviral medication to treat the flu.

Influenza B is believed to be a milder virus compared to some strains of influenza A, such as H3N2, but more potent than the influenza A strains like H1N1 [4]. In fact, multiple studies have suggested increased potency of influenza B virus in causing severe disease and mortality.

Symptoms usually appear from one to four days after exposure to the virus, and they last five to seven days. For people who've had a flu shot, the symptoms may last a shorter amount of time, or be less severe. For other people, the symptoms may last longer. Even when symptoms resolve, you may continue to feel fatigued.

CDC recommends that you stay home for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone except to get medical care or for other necessities. (Your fever should be gone without the use of a fever-reducing medicine.) Stay away from others as much as possible to keep from making others sick.

English version updated 30 September 2021 - COVID-19 and influenza (flu) are both infectious respiratory diseases, and they share some similar symptoms. However, they are caused by different viruses, and there are some differences in who is most vulnerable to severe disease.

If you have a family member who has the flu but you feel well, it's safe to go to work. Check your health daily and stay home if you start to feel sick.

Influenza A viruses with a hemagglutinin against which humans have little or no immunity that have reassorted with a human influenza virus are more likely to result in sustained human-to-human transmission and have pandemic potential.

Is influenza A virus or bacteria?

The flu (also called influenza) is a common illness caused by a virus. Other viruses and some bacteria can cause infections with similar symptoms, but the flu is always viral.

Influenza A viruses infect humans and many different animals. The emergence of a new and very different influenza A virus with the ability infect people and have sustained human to human transmission, can cause an influenza pandemic. Influenza B viruses circulates among humans and cause seasonal epidemics.

Both influenza A and B viruses survived for 24–48 hr on hard, nonporous surfaces such as stainless steel and plastic but survived for <8–12 hr on cloth, paper, and tissues.

The flu is mainly spread through viral droplets in the air, but it can also be transmitted through contact with surfaces. People can be contagious with the flu 1 day before they have symptoms, and up to a week or longer after symptoms begin.

During this 40-year period, flu activity most often peaked in February (17 seasons), followed by December (7 seasons), January (6 seasons) and March (6 seasons).

Influenza A viruses are the most harmful, as they can cause severe disease.

Most people don't actually need a flu test, but some of the reasons a healthcare provider might do a flu test are: The person has risk factors for flu complications. There's a local flu outbreak that the health department is monitoring.

A positive result means that signs of the virus were found and that you may have the flu, especially if other cases of the flu have been reported in your area at the time you are tested. It's possible to get a false-positive result, meaning that you aren't really infected. You may need more tests to confirm this.

Influenza A is a type of virus that causes the flu. Most people who have flu are infected with the influenza type A virus. Symptoms of Influenza A include fever and chills, sneezing, coughing and a sore throat. As well as infecting people, the influenza A virus can infect animals, including birds and pigs.

Is influenza A the flu?

Overview. Flu (influenza) is an infection of the nose, throat and lungs, which are part of the respiratory system. Influenza is commonly called the flu, but it's not the same as stomach "flu" viruses that cause diarrhea and vomiting.

Complications arising from a severe influenza infection usually include the following symptoms: chronic ear infections, sinusitis and bronchitis.

Answer: Influenza is a virus that's spread from person to person. It originates, actually, among birds and other animals such as pigs, and new viral strains of influenza come to this country and to Europe from Southeast Asia.

Most healthy children and adults with the flu can infect others beginning about one day before developing any symptoms and up to seven days after the symptoms resolve. People with weakened immune systems can remain contagious for up to several weeks.

Experts say it is possible to catch the flu twice in one season. That's because there are multiple strains of flu viruses circulating at any one time, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

The 1918 H1N1 flu pandemic, sometimes referred to as the “Spanish flu,” killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including an estimated 675,000 people in the United States. An unusual characteristic of this virus was the high death rate it caused among healthy adults 15 to 34 years of age.

Influenza A and influenza B viruses are the heavy hitters. They're the ones that cause the most severe illness and lead to widespread outbreaks. Influenza C viruses cause mild illnesses in people. They're more similar to a common cold, Dr.

If you become ill with influenza symptoms you should stay home and avoid contact with other people except to seek medical care. Most people are able to recover at home from flu without medical care.

How long to stay at home with influenza A?

To avoid infecting others, stay at home for at least 24 hours after your fever has resolved and until you are feeling well.

People who have any type of flu should stay home until at least 24 hours after their fever has gone away on its own (without the help of fever-reducing medicines). Of course, if you still don't feel better even after your fever is gone, you'll want to keep resting until you do.

The influenza A virus is highly contagious. It can spread through tiny droplets of bodily fluid from coughing, sneezing, or talking. Someone may even catch the flu by touching their mouth or nose after coming into contact with a surface or object that has the virus on it.

Influenza viruses travel through the air in droplets when someone with the infection coughs, sneezes or talks. You can inhale the droplets directly. Or you can pick up the germs from an object — such as a telephone or computer keyboard — and then transfer them to your eyes, nose or mouth.

The flu is caused by influenza viruses that infect the nose, throat, and lungs. These viruses spread when people with flu cough, sneeze or talk, sending droplets with the virus into the air and potentially into the mouths or noses of people who are nearby.