Where Did The Flu Start

February 25, 2018

Throughout history many flu pandemics have originated in China. April 1918 First mention of influenza appears in an April 5 weekly public health report.

1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated In China Historians Say

Thats the global pattern.

Where did the flu start. The 1580 pandemic began in Asia during the summer and then spread to Africa and Europe. This may contribute to a larger number of infants and young children who are more susceptible to the flu. Within six months influenza had spread from southern.

One hypothesis states that this gives the viral population an evolutionary head start thus new epidemics will almost always begin in the area. This strain was so infectious that by the end of October it had spread from coast to coast and had a morbidity rate of about 28 percent. Influenza is a virus thats spread from person to person.

The name of Spanish Flu came from the early affliction and large mortalities in Spain BMJ10191918 where it allegedly killed 8 million in May BMJ 7131918. But as CBS News Sunday Morning Correspondent Martha Teichner reports what they do know is that eggs are the place to grow the flu virus used to create vaccines. The report informs officials of 18 severe cases and three deaths in Haskell Kansas.

Sporadic flu activity spreads unevenly through the United States Europe and possibly Asia over the next six months. In the United States it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918. India is believed to have suffered at least 125 million deaths during the pandemic and the disease reached distant islands in the South Pacific including New Zealand and Samoa.

In March of that year the United States experienced the first outbreaks of what would become known as The Spanish Flu an erroneous term adopted because the press in neutral Spain escaped wartime censorship and freely wrote about the illness. The first wave of swine flu sickened people around the globe last spring and it was declared a pandemic in early June based on its quick spread across communities in. That gave others the impression the flu came from there.

Spanish flu struck in waves. The 1918 flu pandemic struck in three waves across the globe starting in the spring of that year and is tied to a strain of H1N1 influenza ancestral to ones still virulent today. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated it spread worldwide during 1918-1919.

70 rows Flu travels unchecked eastward to New England military bases before traveling. The Spanish flu began in the US. It originates actually among birds and other animals such as pigs and new viral strains of influenza come to this country and to Europe from Southeast Asia.

However a first wave of influenza appeared early in the spring of 1918 in Kansas and in military camps throughout the US. At least one historian however believes that newly discovered records show the outbreak began in 1917 in Shanxi Province China and that the flu was spread by Chinese laborers hired to work in France and Britain during World War I. The first hit the United States in the spring of 1918 but was mild and went almost unnoticed.

Scientists that study the evolution of viruses also think the so-called Spanish flu originated in the US. Due to its genetic make-up they argue it probably originated in the Western Hemisphere and probably in North America. The influenza virus can incorporate the genetic material of animals particularly swine and fowl to evade the human immune system and wreak havoc.

At the New York Medical College. This also would explain why the disease was so well-traveled across the globe. H3N2 first emerged in Hong Kong in 1968.

Outbreaks of the flu occurred in nearly every inhabited part of the world first in ports then spreading from city to city along the main transportation routes. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Few noticed the epidemic in the midst of the war.

In 1933 three scientists isolated the Influenza A virus in ferrets one of the three types of flu and in 1936 it was discovered that the virus could be grown inside embryonated chicken eggs a. A second wave hit in the summer starting in late August in Boston. In 1918 something similar may have happened.

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