Adults catch the flu once every five years, and children once a year, scientists calculated based on a study conducted in China, informs bbc.com.
Although people feel they have got the flu more than once in this time, the fault are often other infections whose symptoms resemble the flu, says an international team of scientists.
The scientists who conducted the study analyzed blood samples collected from 151 volunteers aged between seven and 81 years to try to find out the frequency of influenza infections.
A similar study will be conducted in the UK in order to check whether these findings apply to the British people.
By collecting medical data such long periods, scientists hope to better identify those at greatest risk of infection, influenza epidemics frequency and extent of spread of the disease among communities.
The study, published in PLoS Biology, monitored nine main strains of influenza viruses known to have circulated in the world between 1968 and 2009.
The researchers - who come from Imperial College London and several institutes in the United States and China - have tested blood samples to identify the presence of antibodies - in order to see whether those people were infected with strains in question and, said case, how often this occurred.
According to scientists, flu sick children on average once a year. Influenza infections then become increasingly uncommon with age.
From the age of 30 years, influenza infections tend to occur at a constant rate of about two per decade, the people tested.
Both colds and influenzas are caused by viruses, but the distinction may be difficult, since the two diseases have almost the same symptoms.
Both causes fever and sore throat, and coughing and sneezing - the latter is a form of spreading disease.
What one person considers to be the flu may actually be a strong cold for another person.
In a common cold, the symptoms tend to occur gradually, are usually mild and mainly affects the nose and throat.
Influenza is a disease more severe, following which sick people need bed rest. Symptoms include headache, muscle aches, and stuffy or, conversely, runny nose.
Flu is an unpleasant condition, but non lethal for most of healthy adults, but it can cause serious complications in the elderly and those suffering from other diseases Gronau, such as asthma.
This is why experts recommend people from risk groups to make their flu shot every year. However, internationally published several critics, after scientists found that the main recommended flu shot this year in the UK helps only three people in the 100 not develop flu symptoms. The influenza virus mutates constantly, and this makes it difficult to predict viral strain against which people should get vaccinated each year.
Source: mediafax
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