Spanish Flu
Spanish flu was caused by an H1N1 influenza virus. The Pandemic infected a third of the world’s population and killed at least 50 million people, making it the deadliest pandemic in modern history. Young, old, sick and even healthy people all became infected, and at least 10% of patients died.
ORIGIN AND CAUSE
• There is no universal consensus regarding where the virus originated but most theories believed it started in American Mid-West.
• World War I was responsible for it’s huge spread.
• Spain was a neutral nation during the war and did not enforce strict censorship of its press, which freely published early accounts of the illness. As a result, people falsely believed the illness was specific to Spain, and the name Spanish flu stuck.
• The illness struck the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, along with the leading politicians.
• Its time period was January 1918-December 1920.
• The disease initially spread by exploiting the crowded conditions of an era in which trench warfare was the norm.
SPANISH FLU CHARACTERISTICS• The incubation period for the Spanish flu was recorded from 48 hours to 11 days.
• The Spanish Flu had an RNA material that shares genes similar to that of Bird Flu.
• The mortality rate for Spanish Flu was the highest among people aged between 20 and 40.
• Spanish Flu symptoms include, sore through, congestion, chills, pains in the body.
• The Spanish Flu was first believed to have been transmitted from bird to human before the occurrence of human to human transmission.
• There was no antibiotics or vaccines available to treat those afflicted with the Spanish Flu leading to high mortality rates.
REASONS FOR HIGH FATALITY
• Pneumonia, or other respiratory complications brought about the flu, were often the main causes of death.
• Virology was a nascent science and Microscope couldn’t even see something as incredibly small as a virus until the 1930s.
• There were no vaccines to protect against influenza infections and no antibiotics to treat secondary infections thus secondary infections became fatal.
MEASURES TAKEN TO CONTROL THE PANDEMIC
• School Shutdown.
• Theatres closed
• Travellers banned by many cities.
• Coughing and spitting in public made punishable by New York.
• Many buildings became makeshift hospitals.
• Many US Cities observed complete lockdowns.
• Awareness.
• Social Distancing
• Natural Phenomena: The virus evolved to become milder in the process.
• Climatic Conditions: Differences in climate across India .Influenza viruses tend to not do as well in warm and moist conditions as they do in cooler, drier conditions.
EFFECTS ON POPULATIONS
• Globally, the influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more people in a year than what the Black Death of the Middle Ages (bubonic plague) killed in a century.
• Population profiles got profoundly altered all over.
• It killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS killed in 24 years.
• Swine Flu in 2009 killed 2 lakhs people.
• The Flu had killed over 5% population of the US population.
• The Impact of the population was so severe that in 1918, American life expectancy was reduced by 12 years.
• The decade between 1911-1921 is the only time period when the population of India fell.
FLU IN INDIA
• In India it was named BOMBAY FEVER in 1918.
• In India, the pandemic broke out in Bombay in June 1918,with one of the possible routes being via ships carrying troops returning from the First World War in Europe.
• The outbreak then spread across the country from west and south to east and north, reaching the whole of the country by August.
• It hit different parts of the country in three waves with the second wave being the highest in mortality rate.
• The death rate peaked in the last week of September 1918 in Bombay, in the middle of October in Madras, and in the middle of November in Calcutta.
• Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India's independence struggle, was also infected by the virus. Mahatma Gandhi got and survived but not his daughter in law and her young son.
• The pandemic had a significant influence in the freedom movement in the country. The healthcare system in the country was unable to meet the sudden increase in demands for medical attention. The consequent toll of death and misery, and economic fallout brought about by the pandemic led to an increase in emotion against colonial rule.
• An estimated 12-18 million Indians died. It was one fifth of the global death toll, making India the worst-hit country.
• In his memoirs, the Hindi poet Suryakant Tripathi wrote ‘Ganga was swollen with dead bodies.’
SOME OTHER PANDEMICS• The Great Plague of London
Bubonic Plague first appeared in the 14th century and surfaced for a second time in London in 1665 and killed about 20% of its population. Cats and dogs, believed to be the cause of source, were slaughtered. The outbreak tapered off in 1666. It still exists in rural areas of Western United States, parts of Africa and Asia.
• The Asian Flu
The Asian Flu spread in East Asia in 1957. It was a H2N2 strain first detected in Singapore, it made its way to Hong Kong, U.S.
• The Hong Kong Flu
The Flu Pandemic of 1968 originated in China in 1968.It was caused by influenza A virus H3N2.
It was the third pandemic flu outbreak in the 20th century.
• Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
In 2003, SARS epidemic took lives of nearly 800 people worldwide.
• Swine Flu
In 2009, H1N1 influenza virus attacked the world.
• COVID 19 ( Corona virus)
In 2019, a new virus of the same family of the SARS came up.
WHAT IS PANDEMIC?
• A pandemic is an disease that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or worldwide.
PHASES OF PANDEMIC:
The World Health Organization (WHO) provides an influenza pandemic alert system, with a scale ranging from Phase 1 (a low risk of a flu pandemic) to Phase 6 (a full-blown pandemic):
• Phase 1: A virus in animals has caused no known infections in humans.
• Phase 2: An animal flu virus has caused infection in humans.
• Phase 3: Sporadic cases or small clusters of disease occur in humans. Human-to-human transmission, if any, is insufficient to cause community-level outbreaks.
• Phase 4: The risk for a pandemic is greatly increased but not certain.
• Phase 5: Spread of disease between humans is occurring in more than one country of one WHO region.
• Phase 6: Community-level outbreaks are in at least one additional country in a different WHO region from phase 5. A global pandemic is under way.