COLDS AND FLU: THE SHIVERY STATISTICS

At any given moment, some 30 million Americans are sneezing, coughing, blowing, shivering, or otherwise suffering through the miseries of our species' leading ailment, the common cold. In the course of a year, Americans fall victim to half a billion attacks by cold viruses. Children average six colds a year, adults one to three (more, however, if they live with young children). Even if you are now cold-free, chances are three in four that within the next year one or more of those nasty cold viruses will find you with your guard down and deliver a left hook that sends you bouncing off the ropes. Though your head may spin a bit, you'll most likely be able to get right back into the fight, cold or no cold.

The flu is another matter. It packs a punch that typically sends you to the mat. Try to get up too soon and you're likely to find yourself reeling. Luckily, few people get the flu more than once a year and most people get it only once every several years, if that often. The annual incidence of flu-or influenza, to use its proper name-varies greatly depending upon the fickleness of the virus. Most years about 10 percent of Americans-or 2.4 million people- get the flu, but in a so-called epidemic year as much as a quarter of the population may be attacked by a flu virus that manages to sneak past preexisting immunological barriers by changing its genetic footprint.

An attack by a particular flu virus leads to long-lasting immunity that enables your body to fight off subsequent attacks attempted by this same virus. There are only three basic types of flu virus-A, B, and Ñ-but only A and  are responsible for flu epidemics. Both can undergo genetic changes that allow them to skirt around your hard-won immunity and make you as sick as you might become if you had no prior protection. When such a change occurs, especially in the more deadly type A flu virus, as many as 60 million Americans can expect to get the flu that year and more than 40,000 are likely to die from its complications. In an average year, influenza and its complications kill 10,000 to 20,000 Americans, most of whom are either elderly or already hobbled by a chronic illness like heart disease or emphysema.

Unlike colds, which can plague us year-round (the higher incidence in fall and winter is more a function of our changing behaviors than of any particular season when cold viruses flourish), flu in this country is decidedly a winter phenomenon. The flu season typically begins in November or December and peters out in March or April.

But while the flu is clearly more devastating than a cold, the very frequency of colds makes them a more costly illness. Colds are the leading medical reason for missing school or work. Each year, they account for more than 25 million lost school days and 21 million lost workdays, and that's not counting those who go to school or work with a cold but function there at less than full steam. Medically, colds eat up a significant portion of the family budget. Among children alone, colds account for more than 13 million doctor visits each year, and Americans shell out over $2.3 billion a year on medications to treat colds.

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Anti-Infectives