Whether you were born before or after 1960, it can indeed have an impact on the virus that will do the most damage, according to this study.
Flu 2024-2025
We know it thanks to a colleague, a parent, a friend who paid the costs: this year, the flu is hit hard. Strong fever, big fatigue, breathing difficulties: it is not good to catch this virus during the winter of 2024-2025, under penalty of being bed for a few days.
As the Pasteur Institute warns, promiscuity with other individuals strongly promotes the chances of contamination. This is why large cities are often an epidemic home, especially within schools, means of transport and in the queues.
Therefore, the best way to catch the flu is not to wash your hands after going outside or have been in risk at risk. It is also important to adopt prevention gestures with the aim “to stop the transmission”. The Pasteur Institute also makes the link with “the boom in intensive farming and international tradeand the creation of “New niches”For pathogens, including the influenza virus.
Tell me your year of birth, I will tell you which flu you will contract
However, according to a study co -edited by researchers from the University of Arizona and UCLA, there would be another factor than the size of the city which would allow you to know if you will catch the flu virus More easily or not: this is your year of a birth. At least, in a way.
Within this study, two type A, H5N1 and H7N9 avian influenza viruses are analyzed. The team then discovered a kind of immunological footprint which appears from the first influenza infection. Therefore, the type of flu that you have had as a child will determine the new flu stumps against which you will be protected.
Blue lollipop and orange lollipop
“” “In this analogy, let's say that you were exposed for the first time to a human flu of “orange lollipop” type. If later in your life you meet another subtype of influenza virus, coming from a bird and your immune system has never seen before but whose proteins also have a similar “orange” flavor, your chances To die are quite low due to cross protection. But if you were infected for the first time by a virus in the group of “blue lollipops” when you were a child, that will not protect you against this new “orange” strain“, Explained in a press release Michael World, Ph. D., Director of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of the AU College of Science, member of the Bio5 Institute and one of the two main authors of the study.
Thus, certain age groups are more exposed to certain infections of new influenza strains. Two groups are distinguished: by following the analogy of Michael Worobey, those who were born before 1960 are the “Blue Lush” group, exhibited at the H1 or H2 influenza, and those who were born after 1960 are the “Orange pacifier” group Or exposed to H3 viruses.
Consequently, people born before 1960 will be more protected against the H5N1 avian virus but less against the H7N9. As for people born after 1960, they will be more protected against the H7N9 virus. “” “The fact that we observe exactly the same scheme with the current cases of H5N1 and H7N9 suggests that the same fundamental processes could govern both the historic pandemic of 1918 and the current suitors at the next large flu pandemic.”Said Michael Worobey in the press release.
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