Can you tell the difference between a cold and the flu?

• High fever
  
• Shaking chills
  
• Chest pain with each breath
  
• A continuous hacking cough that produces thick, yellow-greenish-colored phlegm
  
• Extreme weakness and fatigue. A chest x-ray will detect the disease and a combination of antibiotics and intravenous drip may be required

Acute bronchitis, another complication of the flu, is an inflammation of the bronchi, the air passages or tubes to the lungs - not of the lung tissue itself as in pneumonia. Acute bronchitis often follows a common cold or flu or any infection of the nose and throat, usually for the same reason as pneumonia, i.e. your defences are lowered, making you more susceptible to the viruses or bacteria that cause these illnesses.

Bronchitis has the following symptoms:

• A slight fever, 37 to 39 degrees Centigrade
  
• An irritating, dry and painful cough that starts to produce thick, yellow sputum after two or three days; at this stage the fever often recedes and the pain from coughing diminishes
  
• Most bronchitis is caused by a virus, so doctors will not usually advise antibiotics unless a secondar bacterial infection is suspected.

Treating flu
Because the flu is a viral infection, it cannot be treated with antibiotics. Antibiotics only kill bacteria and thus are useless against the flu. Taking antibiotics when you don't need them contributes to an important public health problem - antibiotic resistance.

Some diseases that were once easily cured by antibiotics have become resistant to eradication. For example, earlier this century, antibiotics nearly eliminated dreaded bacterial diseases like tuberculosis and gonorrhea. However, years of widespread misuse have allowed 'antibiotic-resistant' forms of these illnesses to become more common. Most people think that taking an antibiotic cannot hurt them. But taking an antibiotic when it will not help, such as for a cold or the flu, can actually increase your risk of getting a bacterial infection that may not be curable.