A local health expert says that ‘flurona’ is ‘not unusual’

Not only did COVID-19 bring some serious threats to our lives, but it also give us new words to add to our today’s conversation. In 2020, there’s a myriad of wordplay on the term “quarantine,” from “quaranthings” and “quarantreats” to “quaratini,” and, of course, the overused “new normal.” Big words were presented in 2021 pushing people to learn how to differentiate COVID-19 variants, from Gamma and Delta to Omicron. Now, as we begin a new chapter in 2022, the world is introduced to yet another term—flurona.

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Verified by the World Health Organization, flurona is a nickname for when a person is experiencing both the flu and COVID-19. Reports say that the rare double infection is first detected in Israel on an unvaccinated pregnant woman at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.

“The disease is the same disease. They’re viral and cause difficulty breathing since both attack the upper respiratory tract,” Arnon Vizhnitser, the director of the hospital’s gynecology department, said in a report by the Times of Israel.

Locally, Manila Bulletin columnist Dr. Edsel Salvaña weighed in on the co-infections during a press briefing, and said that it is “not unusual.”

“Our very first COVID death in the Philippines back in January 2020, a Chinese national, had both influenza B and coronavirus. He also had Streptococcus pneumoniae,” he added.

For what it is worth, Dr. Salvaña continued to remind Filipinos to get their flu and pneumonia shots to be protected from the health threats caused by the pathogens.