Spanish Influenza

The Spanish Influenza Pandemic

As World War II was coming to an end, a different kind of conflict was beginning across the world. In different parts of the planet, there were widespread outbreaks of the “common cold”. But, it was not the “common cold” as all believed but a malignant strain of influenza. As this plague spread around the world, it is estimated that 20 million to 40 million lost their lives to this disease.

The Center of Disease Control estimates that one third of world’s population was infected and showed signs of the illness during 1918-1919. It also believes that after this period, all global pandemics of the influenza A virus has been caused by the offspring of this virus,

It has been hard to pinpoint where this strain of influenza (or “Spanish Flu”) originated. Prior to 1918, most influenza epidemics started in Asia and spread worldwide but this pandemic moved in three separate waves in Asia, Europe and North America during the 1918-1919. But in this case, the information available is not sufficient to identify the root of the virus and contemporary studies do not locate the virus in any geographical area.

In the United States, the number of deaths attributed to influenza or pneumonia increased in the previous years due to a respiratory disease epidemic. The signs of this pandemic emerged in 1918. The first surge came in the spring of 1918, the second and third surges came in the fall and winter of 1918 respectively. The subsequent surges were far more deadly that the first.

When the 1918 pandemic surfaced, there were different opinions as to the origins of this pandemic. Some thought that it was possible that the respiratory infections of the past years were the beginning of this pandemic but that the virus was not strong enough to initiate a pandemic at that time. Others thought that if the virus was strong enough to alter the death rates in the United States, it should have caused a pandemic sooner.

This pandemic,...