What is flu?
What should I do if I get flu?
Other risks from flu
What is flu vaccine?
Who should have flu vaccine?
At risk conditions
Is flu vaccine safe?
How effective is flu vaccine?
Should I have the flu vaccine every year?
Flu (influenza) is a short illness, caused by a virus. It can affect people of any age, and gives you a sudden fever, chills, headache, and aching in the muscles. Almost everyone gets a dry cough and often a sore throat as well.
Flu is much worse than a cold. Sometimes people will think or say they have flu, when in fact they have a heavy cold. Flu will normally make you feel really quite ill and weak, but you should get better after two to seven days. However, it can be more serious, particularly for people with long-term health problems and older people.
Flu is highly infectious and is spread from person to person, for example by sneezing. If you get flu, you will start to feel ill one to four days after catching the virus from someone else.
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For an attack of flu, simple measures are all that are needed. Rest in bed and drink plenty of fluid. Eat as well as you can (there is no truth in the old saying "feed a cold and starve a fever").
Cold remedies containing aspirin or paracetamol should make you feel less feverish and achy. You can buy them from your local chemist, corner shop or supermarket without a prescription. Do not take more than the recommended dose, particularly if you are taking more than one kind of medicine.
As flu is caused by a virus, antibiotics are no use against it (they only work against bacteria).
If you are normally in good health, you probably won't need to contact your GP - wait and see if you are feeling no better after a few days, or if the cough is no better after a week.
If you already have any of the health problems listed below as 'at risk conditions', you should tell your GP straight away if you catch flu. Your doctor may want to organise a chest X-ray or other tests or treatment.
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Flu can sometimes bring on more serious health problems. This can happen when the body's defences, particularly those in the lungs, have been weakened by the flu virus. The most common of these is pneumonia.
Also, if you have a lung disease, such as asthma, chronic bronchitis or bronchiectasis, catching flu can often cause it to flare up. Older people are more at risk from these complications.
The winter of 1989-90 saw a severe flu epidemic in the UK, causing between 20,000 and 30,000 extra deaths. About half of these deaths were due to lung disease; other causes included heart attacks, strokes and diabetes.
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Flu vaccine is prepared from a harmless version of the flu virus, which is grown in hens' eggs.
The vaccination is given by an injection, usually in the upper arm. Adults need only one injection, which will take about a week to 10 days to protect you from catching flu. Children can have the vaccine from the age of six months. Up until the age of thirteen, they will have two doses of the vaccine, one month apart.
As the flu season usually begins in November, family doctors like to give the vaccine between September and November.
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Flu vaccine is strongly recommended for people of all ages with any of the problems listed below, and especially for older people with these conditions. This is because these people are particularly at risk of getting more serious problems if they catch flu.
Vaccination is also recommended for people who live or work in nursing homes and other long-stay facilities. NHS healthcare workers should be vaccinated.
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- Lung diseases, including asthma, pulmonary fibrosis (fibrosing alveolitis), cystic fibrosis, COPD (chronic bronchitis and/or emphysema) and bronchiectasis
- Heart disease
- Kidney failure
- Diabetes and other hormonal disorders
- Defective immune defences, which may be due to a disease or to treatment for a disease
If you think the flu vaccine might be helpful to you, discuss this with your GP. The vaccine is available on the NHS.
Routine immunisation of healthy adults and children is not advised. This is because for people who are generally healthy, flu is not pleasant - but it is a short illness which is not dangerous.
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For most people, flu vaccine is very safe. Very rarely, however, some people may have an allergic reaction to the egg protein in the vaccine.
If you know you have a serious allergy to eggs, you should not have the vaccine. Sometimes the skin where you had the injection can be sore afterwards.
The flu vaccine cannot give you flu.
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If you are normally in good health, the vaccine will reduce your chance of getting flu by about two thirds. In frailer people the degree of protection is probably less, but doctors believe that if you do catch flu it will be less serious if you have had the vaccine.
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Yes. The major problem in producing a really effective flu vaccine is that the virus is different every year. Even if you are vaccinated you will only be protected for one winter.
The World Health Organisation tries to predict which strains of flu are likely to be the cause of flu each year. A new vaccine is produced every year based on these predictions.
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Page last medically reviewed: March 2011
