Pandemic - It Happened ToDay

Pandemic

March 11, 1918 - First cases of Spanish influenza confirmed.

The disease was first observed at Fort Riley, Kansas on March 4th and confirmed a week later both there and in another case in Queens, New York, on March 11, 1918. An even more virulent strain of the virus would appear in August of 1918 simultaneously in Brest France, Freetown Sierra Leone, and in Boston MA.

Allied soldiers in World War I would refer to the sickness as the Spanish Flu as the virus spread across Europe during the fall of 1918 and into Spain where the uncensored Spanish press wrote freely and dramatically about the devastation from influenza.

The Spanish Flu Pandemic would spread throughout the world in three waves from 1918 into 1920 and touching even the Arctic and remote islands. Infection rates ran as high as 50% in some areas, and global mortality ran upwards of 100 million people. It is estimated that the Spanish Flu killed twice as many people as did the Black Plague of the 14th century.

Current concerns about "Avian Flu" and a new world-wide pandemic are related to the severity of the 1918 Spanish Flu. Research points to the 1918 virus having originated in birds and a mutation of the virus that jumped to humans without first traveling and mutating further through other species. Typically influenza outbreaks have a mortality rate of 0.1% or less for those infected. The Spanish Flu was not a typical outbreak in many respects. Besides the unusually high infection and mortality rates, this strain of influenza targeted young generally healthy adults (20-40 years old) who typically would survive influenza, instead of the usually weaker immune systems of young children and senior citizens.

In the U.S., entire Alaskan villages were obliterated by the Spanish Flu viruses, 500,000 to 700,000 died across the nation while 25-30% of the country was infected by the pandemic. Britain would report a quarter million deaths, and France almost a half million. More than 7 million, or about 3% of the population at that time of India would die of influenza. Pacific Island nations such as Fiji and Samoa would lose up a quarter of their people to the pandemic.

It is estimated that during the past 25 years AIDS has claimed 25 million lives, about the same number as died during the first six months of the Spanish Flu pandemic.

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