1918 H1N1 Flu Pandemic

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A 1918 H1N1 Flu Pandemic is an influenza pandemic of influenza H1N1 that occurred during 1918/1919.



References

2021

  • (Wikipedia, 2021) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu Retrieved:2021-12-6.
    • Spanish flu, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or the 1918 influenza pandemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was March 1918 in Kansas, United States, with further cases recorded in France, Germany and the United Kingdom in April. Two years later, nearly a third of the global population, or an estimated 500 million people, had been infected in four successive waves. Estimates of deaths range from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

      The name "Spanish flu" is a misnomer.[1] The pandemic broke out near the end of World War I, when wartime censors suppressed bad news in the belligerent countries to maintain morale, but newspapers freely reported the outbreak in neutral Spain. These stories created a false impression of Spain as the epicenter, so press outside Spain adopted the name "Spanish" flu. Limited historical epidemiological data make the pandemic's geographic origin indeterminate, with competing hypotheses on the initial spread. Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the young and old, with a higher survival rate in-between, but this pandemic had unusually high mortality for young adults. Scientists offer several explanations for the high mortality, including a six-year climate anomaly affecting migration of disease vectors with increased likelihood of spread through bodies of water.[2] The virus was particularly deadly because it triggered a cytokine storm, ravaging the stronger immune system of young adults,although the viral infection was apparently no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene, exacerbated by the war, promoted bacterial superinfection, killing most of the victims after a typically prolonged death bed.[3] The 1918 Spanish flu was the first of three flu pandemics caused by H1N1 influenza A virus; the most recent one was the 2009 swine flu pandemic. The 1977 Russian flu was also caused by H1N1 virus, but it mostly affected younger populations. The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19, which began in December 2019 and is caused by SARS-CoV-2, is the deadliest respiratory virus pandemic since the Spanish flu.

  1. Mayer J (29 January 2019). "The Origin Of The Name 'Spanish Flu'". Science Friday. Retrieved 30 July 2021. Etymology: In ancient times, before epidemiology science, people believed the stars and “heavenly bodies” flowed into us and dictated our lives and health—influenza means 'to influence' in Italian, and the word stems from the Latin for 'flow in.' Sickness, like other unexplainable events, was attributed to the influence of the stars... But the name for the infamous 1918 outbreak, the Spanish flu, is actually a misnomer".
  2. More AF, Loveluck CP, Clifford H, Handley MJ, Korotkikh EV, Kurbatov AV, et al. (September 2020). "The Impact of a Six-Year Climate Anomaly on the "Spanish Flu" Pandemic and WWI". GeoHealth. 4 (9): e2020GH000277. doi:10.1029/2020GH000277. PMC 7513628. PMID 33005839.
  3. Brundage JF, Shanks GD (December 2007). "What really happened during the 1918 influenza pandemic? The importance of bacterial secondary infections". The Journal of Infectious Diseases. 196 (11): 1717–18, author reply 1718–19. doi:10.1086/522355. PMID 18008258.