The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. Lasting from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people-about a third of the world's population at the time in four successive waves . The death toll is typically estimated to have been somewhere between 17 million and 50 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemic in human history.[4]
Spanish flu
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Soldiers from fort Riley , kansas, ill with Spanish flu at a hospital ward at camp funston . Disease Influenza Virus strain Strains of A/H1N1 Location Worldwide First out break Disputed Within Allied armies Date February 1918- April 1920 Suspected cases 500 million ( estimate) Deaths 17/50+ million ( estimate) 50/100 million ( disputed)
Suspected cases have not been confirmed as being due to this strain by laboratory tests, although some other strain my have been ruled out . The first observations of illness and mortality were documented in the United states ( in fort riley, Haskell county , kansas as well as in New York city) France ( Brest ), Germany and the United Kingdom. To maintain morale , world war censors minimized theses early reports. Newspaper were free to report the epidemic's effect in neutral spain, such as the grave illnes of king alfonso xlll, and theses stories created a false impression of spain as especially hard hit. This gave rise to the name " Spanish" flu. Historical and epidemiological date are inadequate to identify with certainty the pandemic's geographic origin, with varying views as to its location. Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the very young and the very old , with a higher survival rate for those in between, but the Spanish flu pandemic resulted in a higher than expected mortality rate for young adults. Scientists offer several possible explanations for the high mortality rate of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Some analyses have shown the virus to be particularly deadly because it triggers a cytokine storm , which ravages the stinger immune system of young adults. In contrast , a 2007 analysis of medical journals from the period of the pandemic found that the viral infection was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Instead, manlnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals and poor hygiene, all exacerbated by the recent war, ,promoted bacterial superinfection. This superinfection killed most of the victims, typically after a somewhat prolonged death bed. Was know as the Bolshevik disease. In Spain itself, the nickname for the flu , the naples soldier was bolshevik disease. In spain itself the nickname for the glue the naples soldier was adopted from a 1916 operetta, the song of forgetting ( la cancion del olvido) after one the librettists quipped that the play' s most popular musical number, Naples soldier, was as catchy as the flu. Other terms for this virus include the "1918 influenza pandemic,"the 1918 flu pandemic,"or variations of these. The pandemic is conventionally marked as having begun on 4 March 1918 , with the recording of the case of albert Gitchell , an army cook at camp funston in Kansas, United States, despite there likely having been case before him. The disease had been observed in haskell county in junuary 1918 , prompting local doctor loring miner to warn the us Public Health Service academic journal. Within days 522 men at the camp had reported sick. By 11 March 1918, the virus had reached Queens, new york. [citation needed ] failure to take preventive measures in March/ April was later criticised .as us had entered world war , the disease quickly spread from camp funston , a major training ground for troops of the American expeditionnary forces , to other us army camps and Europe becoming an epidemic in the midwest east coast and French ports by April 1918 and reaching the western front by the middle of the month . It then quickly spread to the rest of France, Great Britain, italy and Spain and in May reached Wroclaw and Odessa. After the signing of the treaty of brest. Litovsk, Germany started releasing Russian prisoners of war who then brought the disease to their country. It reached North Africa India and Japan in May and soon after had likely gone around the world as there had been recorded cases in Southeast Asia in April in June an outbreak was reported in China. After reaching Australia in July the wave started to recede. The first wave of the flu lasted from the first quarter of 1918 and was relatively mild. Mortality rate were not appreciably above normal in the United States "~75,000 flu related deaths during the same time period in 1918. However, the first six months of 1918 , compared to~63,000 death during the same time period in 1915 . In Madrid Spain fewer than 1,000 people died from influenza between May and June 1918 . Ther were no reported quarantines during the first quarter of 1918. However the first wave caused a significant disruption in the military operations of world war 1 with three - quarter of French troops half the British forces, and over 900,000 German soldier sick.
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Seattle poice wearing mask in December 1918 deadly second wave of late 1918 The second wave begin in the second half of august probably spreading to Boston and freetown, sierra leone by ships from Brest, where it had likely arrived with American troops or French recruits for naval training. From the boston navy yard and camp devens later renamed fort devens about 30 miles west of Boston , other us military sites were soon afflicted as were troops being transported to Europe. Helped by troop movements, it spread over the next two months to all of North America and then to central and South America, also reaching Brazil and the Caribbean on ships . From Freetown , the pandemic continued to spread through west Africa along the Coast , rivers , the colonial railways and from railheads to more remote communities while South Africa received it in September on ships bringing back members of the South Africa native labour corps returning from France. From there it spread around sound Southern Africa and beyond the zambezi reaching Ethiopia in November. The Philadelphia liberty loans parade, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 28 September 1918 to promote government bonds for world war 1 resulted in 12,000 deaths after a major outbreak of the illness spread among people who had attended the parade.
