Add to your...
The Great Swine Flu epidemic of 1918 is better known as the Great Spanish Flu epidemic and killed over 21 million people in four months.
The Great Swine Flu epidemic of 1918 is better known as the Great Spanish Flu epidemic and killed over 21 million people in four months. Almost 80% of American causalities in World War I came from this flu.
It began in the spring of 1918 and started as the normal non-lethal flu. But over the months it mutated into a very deadly form. 80% of patients became extremely ill quickly and often died within hours while others lingered for several days. The other 20% only developed mild symptoms.
The first deaths in the United States were believed to have occurred among Navy personnel in Boston in late August of 1918. The epidemic then quickly spread to all other parts of the country. Public functions were cancelled, schools closed but this did little to stop the spread. Between the fall of 1918 and spring of 1919 over a half a million Americans died. In Great Britain the death toll was a quarter of a million with similar numbers of deaths in France and Germany. There is an estimate that the global total ran as high as 100 million deaths.
There is not much know about the 1918 flu especially how it started so suddenly, all over the world – in countries separated by oceans, and mountain ranges. Because a virus can not survive for more than a few hours outside a host – it is still a mystery how this virus appeared in Spain, India and the United States all in the same week in a time before the era of swift air travel. A probable answer is that it incubated and spread in people who had only mild or no symptoms. But this still does not answer the question of how this flu could lay low and then erupt so violently at almost the same time all over the world. It also seemed to be most deadly in young healthy adults. During normal flu season, most deaths are among infants and the elderly.
Occasionally over the years certain strains of this virus return. There was an outbreak of H1N1 over wide areas in 1933, again in the 1950s and again in the 1970s. Where was it in between – no one knows. One theory is that viruses hid unnoticed in wild animals before mutating to humans. That is the reason that the world is being so cautious with this current outbreak of Swine flu that seems to have begun in Mexico.
The current flu seems to be slowing down but many believe that it could begin again during next year’s flu season. It has only been a few weeks and many mysteries remain with this current epidemic. The few deaths have only been in healthy young adults but it does not seem as virulent as the 1918 virus.
We need to remember than during a normal flu season over 30,000 people die in the United States alone and some believe up to 500,000 die worldwide. Mexico has confirmed only about 2000 cases, but epidemiologists believe that it is likely that many mild cases occurred in Mexico which were never reported. So as of now they have been unable to determine the severity or fatality rate with this virus.
To read more about the swine flu, worldwide, we recommend some interesting articles in www.mexicanswinepigflu.com