Mucus

Megu Kolanko 4 The Record: The state of COVID-19 today WELCOME TO. FOR THE RECORD, I'M KRISTEN POWERS THIS MORNING. WE'RE LOOKING AT COVID 19 TODAY. SINCE THE PANDEMIC HIT, WE'VE LEARNED A LOT MORE ABOUT THE DISEASE AND THERE HAVE BEEN ADVANCEMENTS IN PREVENTION AND TREATMENT. NOW, WHILE IT MAY NOT BE TOP OF MIND ANYMORE, COVID IS STILL A REALITY AND IMPACTING MANY PEOPLE. JAN THREE OF 2020. THE FIRST CONFIRMED CASE OF COVID 19 IN THE U.S. LESS. THAN TWO MONTHS LATER, IN MARCH, THE FIRST IN ALLEGHENY COUNTY. NOW, IN EARLY 2024, VACCINATION AND TREATMENTS ARE SAVING COUNTLESS LIVES. IT'S BECOME SO MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE. VACCINES, ANTIVIRALS, WASTEWATER MONITORING, HOME TESTS AND WE'VE GOT THIS ABILITY N...

It's that time of year again, when stuffy noses and irrepressible coughs start to show up everywhere. The best precaution you can take against influenza or Covid infection is to get vaccinated. But there is little you can do for the common cold and other respiratory illnesses, especially once you get sick. Most are caused by viruses, so you cannot cure them with antibiotics, which are used to treat bacterial infections. While drugs like Paxlovid are accessible for treating Covid, antiviral treatments for influenza, like Tamiflu, are usually reserved for people who have tested positive for the flu and are at risk of developing severe complications, such as those who are pregnant, elderly or immunocompromised. For everyone else, doctors suggest resting and waiting out your symptoms — which for flu, can include a fever, headache, body aches and a stuffy or runny nose that lasts three to five days. Some people may also develop a cough or sore throat or experience fatigue, which can las...

Green mucus may mean a bacterial or, less often, viral infection, but that's not always true. You constantly breathe in bacteria, some of which are harmless, through your nasal passages. A build-up of bacteria may cause green mucus without making you sick. You may wonder whether you need antibiotics if you blow your nose and notice your snot is green. Antibiotics only treat bacterial infections, but your mucus color alone cannot tell whether an infection is bacterial or viral. You may not need antibiotics, even with a mild bacterial infection. Still, consult a healthcare provider if your symptoms do not improve or worsen. Read on to find out why green snot happens and what it may indicate about your health. Pattarisara Suvichanarakul / Getty images Green, or yellowish-green, mucus is one of the telltale signs that your body is working to flush germs that cause infections out of your system, Cory Fisher, DO, a family medicine specialist bas...

In the most general of terms, pneumonia is an infection in the lungs caused by inflammation of the air sacs, known technically as alveoli. Those alveoli fill up with fluid or pus, which leads to symptomslike coughing, fever, and chills. But pneumonia can be much more complicated than that—it can be caused by different things (a virus, bacteria, or fungus), acquired in different environments (in the community or at the hospital), and can even differ in how much the infection affects the lungs. Multifocal pneumonia narrows the diagnosis down a little more to how much of the lung is affected. Essentially, multifocal pneumonia is a term that's used to describe pneumonia in different spots of the lung, Raymond Casciari, MD, a pulmonologist and chief medical officer at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif., told Health . "Multifocal could be two spots in the same lobe or two spots in different lobes," Casciari said. Getty Images To better understand w...

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Fact check: Dr Oz remarks on flu shot increasing chances of getting COVID-19 misrepresented    Reuters

Any parent of young children dreads hearing the words "pink eye." This common childhood infection, also called conjunctivitis, can spread rapidly, and once the little ones bring it home, it can be passed easily to other members of the household.  But why is pink eye so contagious? One factor is that conjunctivitis , or inflammation of the conjunctiva — a thin, clear mucous layer that covers the inner surface of the eyelid and the white part of the eyeball — is often caused by very infectious bacteria and viruses, Dr. Paramdeep Bilkhu , an optometrist and clinical adviser at the College of Optometrists in London, told Live Science by email.  Although allergies or irritants such as a loose eyelash can cause pink eye, most cases come from viruses and bacteria. Adenoviruses , a highly contagious family of pathogens that also cause cold- and flu-like symptoms, account for over 75% of cases of infective conjunctivitis, Bilkhu said.  Adenoviruse...

Cambodia's health ministry has reported another human infection from H5N1 avian influenza, part of an uptick in similar cases that began in 2023. Juhan Sonin / Flickr cc The patient is a 17-year-old girl from Kampot province, according to a ministry statement translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary, an infectious disease news blog. Kampot province is in southern Cambodia. The girl is hospitalized in the intensive care unit and is improving. An investigation found that about 5 days before the girl's symptoms began, there were seven dead chickens at her home. Cambodia has now reported 5 cases for 2024 and a total of 11 since February 2023, following nearly a decade with no human infections. Genetic sequencing on samples from several cases has revealed that the virus belongs to an older H5N1 clade (2.3.2.1c) that still circulates in poultry in some Asian countries, including Cambodia. It is different from the newer H5N1 clade (2.3.4.4b) that is currently affecting wild bi...