Rio and Ceará report cases of ‘flurona’, Covid co-infection and influenza

Rio de Janeiro and Ceará already register cases of co-infection by Covid-19 and influenza, a phenomenon that is being called “flurone”, a combination of the names of the two diseases.

In Rio, the double infection was identified in a 16-year-old teenager. The young man’s mother, physiotherapist Adriana Soutto Mayor says he began to show mild symptoms, such as a runny nose and low-grade fever, last Wednesday (29). As the son remained with the same condition, she decided to take him for a test the next day.

“I thought that, if anything, it would be influenza, but they gave it both ways. I suspected and we went to another laboratory. In a few hours, the result also came, confirming the first test”, she says, adding that she was scared to see the double infection. “I didn’t know you could have both viruses at the same time.”

The physiotherapist says that the son is fine and that he took both doses of the vaccine. According to her, health authorities in Rio have already got in touch to investigate the case.

In a statement, the State Department of Health says that it has not yet confirmed the double infection and that, in general, cases are reported by the disease with greater severity, in this case Covid-19. “It is important to emphasize that there are still no published scientific studies that confirm the clinical or immunological implications of the joint infection. The Secretariat reinforces that it will monitor any occurrence that may be notified in the state.”

In Ceará, the government has already confirmed three cases of coinfection, all of them in Fortaleza. They are two one-year-old children, whose clinical conditions were not serious and who have already been discharged, and a 52-year-old man who did not need to be hospitalized.

According to the State Health Department, it is not yet known which strain of the coronavirus infected the three. The folder said, however, that the patients were contaminated by H3N2, one of the strains of influenza.

According to the infectologist Leonardo Weissmann, it is not yet possible to know whether the coinfection increases the severity of the diseases. “Both Covid-19 and influenza are respiratory diseases, but the so-called flurone is very new and we don’t know if the combination of the two viruses causes more serious illnesses.”

Weissmann says that the trend is for cases of double infection to increase due to the end-of-year festivities and the proximity to Carnival.

“This is an expected possibility due to the circulation of the two viruses and the similar transmission, from person to person, through droplets. We must also not forget the viruses transmitted by Aedes aegypti, such as dengue, chikungunya, zika, which have a higher frequency this time of year,” he says.

The “flurone” cases began to draw attention when Israeli authorities confirmed the case of double infection in a pregnant woman. The woman was interned at the Rabin Medical Center in the town of Petah Tikva.

According to the hospital, the young woman had not been vaccinated against Covid or influenza and was diagnosed with both diseases as soon as she arrived at the unit.

Israel’s Ministry of Health is investigating the case to see if the combination of the two diseases could result in a more serious infection. For the country’s health authorities, it is possible that other people have also had “flurone”, but without a diagnosis.

“Last year, we have not witnessed flu cases among pregnant or parturient women,” said Arnon Vizhnitser, director of the health unit’s gynecology department. “Today, we are seeing cases of coronaviruses and flu that are starting to show up.”