Scientists Determine Structure of 1918 Flu Virus

Elusive_Cure writes "NIMR scientists have solved an 85-year old riddle by determining the structure of the flu virus which jumped from birds to humans in 1918 killing more than 20 million people worldwide. This is the same virus that took more lives than World War I and became the largest and deadliest influenza outbreak in recorded history."

Comments

I thought it was caused more by social conditions

[GonzoDave]

postwar, rather than any inherent lethality

Re:Last Post!

[stefanlasiewski]

I took my flu shot, last year, and got sick from it.

By 'sick' did you mean 'sick with the flu'?

You probably didn't get the flu from the flu shot.

The flu shot only protects you from certain strains of the flu virus. You probably got one of the many strains of the flu that wasn't covered by the flu shot. This was pretty common last year.

And then, all of a sudden the media ran around screaming "Crisis Crisis" when stocks of the flu shot got low (per the schedule).

What Sample?

[waldoj]

I read Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic] a couple of years ago, so I'm quite interested to find out from where the sample was acquired. Kolata describes a couple of efforts to extract samples, one from the body of a woman buried in a lead-lined coffin, another from the body of a miner buried deep under once-frozen tundra near the Arctic Circle, in North America. Neither panned out.

So, where'd they finally get the sample from?

-Waldo Jaquith

Re:aka: spanish flu, pandemic

[bgins]

http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/pandemics/flu3.htm#9 :

The Spanish Influenza pandemic is the catastrophe against which all modern pandemics are measured. It is estimated that approximately 20 to 40 percent of the worldwide population became ill and that over 20 million people died. Between September 1918 and April 1919, approximately 500,000 deaths from the flu occurred in the U.S. alone. Many people died from this very quickly. Some people who felt well in the morning became sick by noon, and were dead by nightfall. Those who did not succumb to the disease within the first few days often died of complications from the flu (such as pneumonia) caused by bacteria.

One of the most unusual aspects of the Spanish flu was its ability to kill young adults. The reasons for this remain uncertain. With the Spanish flu, mortality rates were high among healthy adults as well as the usual high-risk groups. The attack rate and mortality was highest among adults 20 to 50 years old. The severity of that virus has not been seen again.

The formula for a bad pandemic seems to be (1) contagiousness; (2) deadliness; (3) opportunity to spread, which implies a both an intrinsic property: (a) "laziness"/non-greediness or a delayed onset (HIV vs. Ebola), and (b) good mixing opportunities (see the link above for examples of why second waves sometimes occur, or how even seasonal timing with the schoolyear can aid in spreading).