Download What causes a cold and the flu?

Cold and Flu: Would Antibiotics Do?
Ah-choo! You’re bound to hear that sound — along with sniffling, coughing, and nose-blowing — every
winter when cold-and-flu season sprinkles its misery on just about everyone. Up to 20% of LAU
community gets the flu every year, and suffers one billion colds. Children get colds and the flu more
often than adults. Some kids get as many as 12 colds a year, while adults average 2 to 4.
What causes a cold and the flu?
A cold and the flu are both caused by viruses, tiny infectious agents that can survive only by getting
inside the cells of animals or humans. One of the differences between a cold and the flu is the kind of
virus that causes each. The flu, medically known as influenza, is always caused by one of the influenza
viruses. Colds (also known as viral rhinitis, nasopharyngitis, or nonspecific upper respiratory infections),
on the other hand, can be caused by more than 200 different viruses — and that estimate includes only
the viruses doctors know about. The viruses that cause as many as 50% of colds in adults have not even
been identified. The biggest offender, called the rhinovirus, causes up to 40% of colds and has about 100
distinct types. Other prevalent upper respiratory viruses include coronaviruses, adenovirus, and the
respiratory syncytial virus. Your body reacts very differently to being infected by a cold virus versus an
influenza virus. The type of virus determines what symptoms you get and how severe they will be.
Many cold viruses are extremely hard to grow in laboratory environments, and are therefore hard to
study.
Learning more about the viruses that cause colds and the flu can help doctors figure out how to prevent
and treat these illnesses. For most people, however, the most important thing to know is that viruses
are to blame for both colds and the flu. This fact has very important implications for treating — and
preventing — these illnesses. For example, knowing that colds and the flu are caused by viruses explains
why taking an antibiotic would do nothing for you. Antibiotics work only on bacterial infections, not on
viral infections.