What's the difference between H1N1 and the seasonal flu?
SUPER [Dr. Michael Gardam
Director of Infection Disease Prevention and Control]
Dr. Michael Gardam: Basically, the sickness you get from the seasonal flu and H1N1 are identical. There's really no way of clinically telling them apart.
Young kids with H1N1 seem to have a little bit more of a chance of getting stomach upset and diarrhea and things like that, then they would with seasonal flu. But in general, they look pretty much the same. In fact, there's other viruses that can cause what we call influenza-like illness that look pretty much the same as well.
We're lucky right now — in early November — that most of those viruses really aren't circulating yet. As we get on into the winter though, you will start to see people coming down with symptoms that look just like H1N1, but it may not be H1N1.
BOARD [For more information visit:
ontario.ca/flu]