Spanish flu

The Spanish Flu Pandemic, also known as , , or the 1918 flu, was a pandemic caused by an unusually severe and deadly strain of the subtype H1N1 of the species Influenza A virus (which apparently killed via cytokine storm, explaining the severe nature and unusual age distribution). In that pandemic, 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed during about a year in 1918 and 1919 NAP.

The Allies of World War I called it the "Spanish Flu". This was mainly because the pandemic received greater press attention in Spain than in the rest of the world, as Spain was not involved in the war and there was no wartime censorship in Spain.

Rapid and lethal spread of influenza

The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but is estimated at 2.5% – 5% of the human population, with 20% of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent. Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million in its first 25 weeks; in contrast, AIDS killed 25 million in its first 25 years. Influenza spread across the world, killing more than 25 million in six months; some estimates put the total killed at over twice that number, possibly even 100 million.

In US, about 28% of the population suffered, and 500,000 to 675,000 died. In Britain 200,000 died; in France more than 400,000. Entire villages perished in Alaska and southern Africa. In Australia an estimated 10,000 people died and in the Fiji Islands, 14% of population died during only two weeks, and in Western Samoa 22%. An estimated 17 million died in India, about 5% of India's population at the time. In the Indian Army, almost 22% of troops who caught the disease died of it.

While World War I didn't cause the flu, the close quarters and mass movement of troops quickened its spread. It has been speculated that the soldiers' immune systems were weakened by the stresses of combat and chemical attacks, increasing their susceptibility to the disease.

Patterns of fatality

The strain was unusual for influenza in that this pandemic killed many young adults and otherwise healthy victims; common influenzas kill mostly newborns, the old and infirm.

People without symptoms could be struck suddenly and within hours be too feeble to walk; many died the next day. Symptoms included a blue tint to the face and coughing up blood caused by severe obstruction of the lungs. In later stages, the virus caused an uncontrollable hemorrhaging that filled the lungs, and patients drowned in their body fluids.

In fast-progressing cases, mortality was primarily from pneumonia, by virus-induced consolidation. Slower-progressing cases featured secondary bacterial pneumonias, and there may have been neural involvement that led to psychiatric disorders in a minority of cases. Some deaths resulted from malnourishment and even animal attacks in overwhelmed communities.

Devastated communities

While in most places less than one-third of the population was infected and a fraction of that died, in a number of towns in several countries the entire population was wiped out.

Even in areas where mortality was low, those incapacitated by the illness were often so numerous as to bring much of everyday life to a stop. Some communities closed all stores or required customers not to enter the store but place their orders outside the store for filling. There were many reports of places with no health care workers to tend the sick because of their own ill health and no able bodied grave diggers to bury the dead. Mass graves were dug by steam shovel and bodies buried without coffins in many places.

Attempts to curb the pandemic

The social effects were intense due to the fast spread of the pandemic. Many cities, states, and countries enforced restrictions on public gatherings and travel to try to stop the pandemic. In many places theaters, dance halls, churches and other public gathering places were closed for over a year. Quarantines were enforced with little success. Some communities placed armed guards at the borders and turned back or quarantined any travellers. One U.S. town even outlawed shaking hands.

Unaffected Locales

In Japan, 257,363 deaths were attributed to influenza by July 1919, giving an estimated 0.425% mortality rate, much lower than nearly all other Asian countries for which data are available. The only sizeable inhabited place with no documented outbreak of the flu in 1918–1919 was the island of Marajó at the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil.

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Rapid and lethal spread of influenza

Patterns of fatality

Devastated communities

Attempts to curb the pandemic

Unaffected Locales

Further reading