What would be 2 questions in terms of symptoms one could ask to distinguish between likely Swine flu from unlikely normal flu?
What symptoms would alert us to think this is more likely Swine flu rather than just a normal cold and normal flu?
(this is talking about before we have confirmative throat and nasal swab PCR back, just based on history of symptoms alone)
Thanks.
From symptoms, there really is no way to distinguish swine flu from seasonal (normal) flu. There are diagnostic tests that can be done locally to determine if the flu is a Type A influenza. That’s the broader type to which the current swine flu belongs. However, it takes a more specific test, usually administered by public health labs, to determine if the DNA profile of the flu matches that of swine flu.
You knew virus look like from CDC pictures.
Put specimen under a darkfield or fluorescent microscope, searching about 15 minutes. It’s done.
Only 200 labs around the world can trace subtype of influenza by a Chinese flu chip inserting into a slot of tube light and it takes about 11 hours. Commercial antigen test takes about 15 minutes, but it cant know its subtype either.
How fast virus grow in the body? Just count them in a square micrometer of the meter len, and retest in few hours and count them again and again.