Professor: We can learn from 1918 flu pandemic | Coronavirus - The Herald

When talking about the current COVID-19 epidemic, many tend to mention the 1918 flu pandemic that also swept across the world.

In this 1918 photo, volunteer nurses from the American Red Cross tend to influenza patients in the Oakland Municipal Auditorium, used as a temporary hospital. 
Photo: courtesy Library of Congress via The Associated Press

“Both viruses spread rapidly to all areas of the world, although some people in 1918 had partial immunity to that strain of influenza,” said Ann Carmichael, a professor emerita at Indiana University-Bloomington’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine. “They were older and/or lived in some rural areas where the strain of influenza prior to 1889-91 still circulated. So, 1918 was devastating for younger adults.”

The 1918 flu pandemic was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide in 1918 and 1919...

The pandemic is also known as the Spanish flu, though the exact origin of the flu is not fully known.

“It became the Spanish influenza because Spain didn’t join the war, and thus reported the flu in newspapers months before others did,” Carmichael explained.
Read more...

Source: The Herald