1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Lesson to be learned at Swine Flu Remedies

1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Lesson to be learned

The Spanish Flu occurred in 1918 and spread to nearly every part of the world. The 1918 pandemic was caused by a strain of Influenza that was highly infective and very deadly. It is hard to pinpoint the origin of the virus as the data from that period was not sufficient to find a source. Most victims of the 1918 Spanish Flu were healthy young adults which differs from most influenza outbreaks which generally affect juvenile, elderly, or otherwise weakened patients. The 1918 pandemic started in March 1918 an lasted until 1919 and spread far and wide, affecting even the Arctic and remote Pacific Islands. It is estimated that nearly one third of the world’s population or 500 million people were infected during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic.

The Spanish Flu pandemic was exceptionally severe and had a fatality rate of approximately 2.5% with an estimated death toll of anywhere from 50 million to 100 million people. This extraordinary toll resulted from the extremely high illness rate and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms (potentially fatal immune reaction consisting of a positive feedback loop between cytokines and immune cells, with highly elevated levels of various cytokines).

The Spanish Flu spread simultaneously in 3 distinct waves affecting North America, Asia and Europe during a period of 12 months between 1918 and 1919. This is part of the reason it is hard to pinpoint a point of original. Before and after the 1918 pandemic, most influenza pandemics developed in Asia and spread from there to the rest of the world. While influenza was not nationally reported in 1918, death rates from influenza and pneumonia had risen sharply in the United States in 1915 and 1916 due to a respiratory epidemic that began in December 1915. Death rates from this epidemic seemed to drop slightly during 1917. The United States experienced the first Spanish flu pandemic wave in the spring of 1918. The first wave began in March 1918 and spread unevenly through the United States, Europe, and possibly Asia during the next 6 months. Reported illness during this wave were high, but the death rate was not much higher than normal.

The first wave was quickly followed by a much more fatal second and third wave in the fall and winter of 1918–1919. The second wave began in September 1918 and lasted until November 1918 and proved to be highly fatal. A third wave followed in early 1919. Another unique aspect of the 1918 Spanish flu is that it nearly simultaneously infected humans and swine.

The pandemic took a huge toll on communities everywhere even in areas where the death rate was lower, there were many times so many people sickened by the virus that it brought every day life to a standstill. Some communities even went so far as to close all stores and would require customers to leave their orders otuside to be filled later. Health care workers with in high demand and short supply because they too were sick. There were even reports that mass graves had to be dub by steam shovel resulting in bodies buried without coffins in many places due to a lack of grave diggers.

Reading back through reports of the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak shows some similarities:

It started in the spring, March to be precise.
The spread was uneven at first and not much more deadly than normal flu
It infected swine and humans
There were reports that governments around the world downplayed the severity of the virus

Lets hope that those are the only similarities and the reports that the 2009 swine flu is waning are accurate and we don’t see a resurgence come fall and winter. I know one thing though. While I am not panicking, I am taking a lesson form the past and preparing for a potentially devastating flu season come fall and winter. I will be stocking up during summer on face masks, hand sanitizer and wipes, germ killers, disinfectants and the things my family will need to make it through a few weeks on our own. I think I will be watching for deals on chest freezers and vacuum sealers as well.