When to seek medical care

Children: symptoms requiring urgent medical attention

If a child falls ill with influenza and has one or more of the following symptoms, you should take the child to a doctor as soon as possible:

• fast breathing or trouble breathing
• bluish or grey skin colour
• not drinking enough fluids
• severe or persistent vomiting
• not waking up or not interacting
• being so irritable that the child does not want to be held
• flu-like symptoms improve, but then return with fever and worse cough.

Adults: symptoms requiring urgent medical attention

See a doctor as soon as possible if you fall ill and experience any of the following symptoms of influenza:

• difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
• pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen
• sudden dizziness or confusion
• severe or persistent vomiting
• flu-like symptoms improve, but then return with fever and worse cough.

At-risk groups: symptoms requiring urgent medical attention

People in at-risk groups for influenza will need help sooner than others. If you or your child develop a sudden fever (38 °C or higher), accompanied by a sore throat, cough, and you or your child belong to any of the following high-risk groups for influenza, contact your local health centre (by phone) or seek medical care. You or your child may need treatment.

• You are pregnant

• You have one or more of the following chronic conditions:
  
  • a heart disease requiring regular medication (not mild arterial hypertension)
  • a lung disease requiring regular medication (regular asthma medication)
  • diabetes requiring regular medication
  • chronic liver failure or chronic kidney disease
  • an immune system disease, such as leukaemia, lymphoma or HIV
  • a condition whose treatment reduces the immune response (organ transplantation, cytostatics, TNF-alpha blocker, corticosteroids >15 mg/day for more than two weeks, or other such treatment)
  • a chronic neurological or neuromuscular disease
  • morbid obesity (BMI > 40)