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June 04, 2003

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

“Killer Virus”

Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com) (06/04/03) P. C1; Brown, Steve

The Spanish influenza virus missed very few areas of the world in 1918, 1919, and 1920, killing at least 50 million people but affecting different nations, ethnic groups, and economic classes in different ways.  In some ways, the epidemic is similar to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), as both are respiratory illnesses and are spread by the same kind of contact, and both seem to have stemmed from animal viruses. SARS kills about 10 to 15 percent of those infected, however, while the death toll for the Spanish flu varied widely by country and ethnic groups. The Spanish flu's origin is not certain, but the first major outbreak was in Kansas at Camp Funston, and it spread to Army camps in Georgia and other military outposts before hitting the civilian population and jumping the Atlantic via soldiers on their way to fight in World War I.  Wide publicity of the flu's outbreak in Spain landed the virus with its name even though experts at the time knew it to be misleading; the flu spread out of Europe to South America, Asia, and the Pacific, and slowed down in the summer of 1918, as expected.  When it reappeared in the autumn, it was over 10 times as deadly, and it showed up almost at once on three different continents, starting at busy ports and racing into Africa, Europe, and America.  The flu killed young adults more than the elderly or children, and the only effective defense was quarantine, which saved American Samoa from flu deaths.  Research suggests that 98 percent of those Americans who were alive during 1918 and 1919 were infected with the Spanish flu.