Essay on Causes of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

In the early 1900’s medicine was making some steps closer into some great improvements for health and better understanding of the human body. Doctors with sufficient knowledge of the human body and cures for diseases and viruses were scarce. People were much more concerned with government and politics, than health and medicine, until one of the greatest and most grotesque lethal pandemics that’s struck the earth in human history. This pandemic the “Spanish Flu” spread so rapidly and had an extremely high mortality rate. This was caused by the close contact of humans and poor cleanliness and sanitation, and the host (virus) and the body taking harsh action

It was the year 1918, Many people were fighting viciously in the World War fighting for what each side had believed was true and fair. Both the allied and the axis powers were butting heads across Europe, Asia and Africa. As the war was coming to an end a massive 16 million lives were taken from the war-torn events that had taken place. While the war effort was in full force both domestically and internationally, A secret war was brewing under the surface becoming the underlying theme for what would be the most cataclysmic atrocity that had ever existed, only coming second to the bubonic plague. This would be the name of the biggest viral pandemic to had spread since that time, and its name would be the 1918 flu or Spanish

     There have been about 20 million reported deaths due to the influenza of 1918. The doctors were too overwhelmed by the many cases they had to care for, which brought about many unreported cases, causing this minuscule number. One fateful day in October 759 people died in Philadelphia (Kolata 19-20). The epidemic spread so far so fast that public officials became frantic looking for ways to fend off the virus. Arrests were made for spitting and coughing, public meetings were prohibited, and a series of medical procedures were all attempts to prevent the virus from entering victims’ lungs (Persico 83).

The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It is a true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy overnight. It was a plague so deadly that if a similar virus were to strike today, it would kill more people in a single year than heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS and Alzheimer's disease combined.

The 1918 influenza had a catastrophic impact on the world. It washed over the world in waves, killing millions from even the most remote places on every continent. No one was safe from this lethal disease. It also had an odd pattern in victims that nobody had seen before, killing strong and healthy people. It was a ruthless disease that devastated it’s victims and killed them in a macabre way.

The first time the Spanish Flu occurred in the US was in Kansas in 1918. These disease spread very fast because of how close the troops were with each other while they were fighting in WWI. The disease burned out quickly by 1919, with the explanation unknown still today. The mortality rate of this disease was as many as 1 in 5, leaving the world with a population decrease of approximately one third. As many as 50 million people were believed to have died and 25 million of those people are suspected of dying in the first 25 weeks of the first

The United states faced one of the deadliest epidemics in US history from 1918-1919, killing nearly 675,000 americans. When it first started, it killed nearly half the US soldiers who fought in the war. By August of 1918, Philadelphia and Boston were already infected by influenza. Then by October 1919, influenza had killed nearly 200,000 americans.

The 1918 influenza outbreak remains one of the world’s greatest pandemic, it caused more casualties than the Nazis and far more than the two atomic bombs that dropped on Japan . It also hastened the end of World War I. The influenza virus arose among the army camps of Kansas, infected soldiers carried the disease by rail to army and navy centers on the East and South Coast. The epidemic continued to spread globally, hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers who embarked to France carried the virus to Europe and the British Isles, the influenza then moved to Africa via Sierra Leone, where the British had a major coaling station. Dockworkers who helped in refueling the ships contracted the infection and they spread the highly contagious virus

The military strategies and decisions of the United States Military made the Spanish Influenza a disastrous and widespread epidemic from 1918 to 1919, which infected approximately one third of the world’s population (around 500 million people) and killed around 50 million. [1][2] In comparison, World War I only claimed an estimated 16 million life. [4][5][6][7]The flu killed more than war itself. [3] There were three waves of Spanish flu, which occurred in 1918 spring, 1918 fall and 1919 spring. The first and third one were relatively mild, but the second one was far more severe, causing death within hours or a few days. [8][9]However, it was not a coincidence for the epidemic and the

In ‘The United States World War One Centennial Commission – Colorado in World War I’ article, they compare the military personnel deaths in service to Colorado Residents deaths from the flu. The numbers are very surprising, having Colorado military deaths at 1,100 and Colorado flu patients at 7,783 (US Foundation for the commemoration of the world wars 2017). This was no little cold and it did not discriminate in age or race. While researching for details about how the residents felt about the plague, I came across “The Colorado Prospector” 1918 archives. There are only two whole pages in it about the flu in the entire newspaper, however, they are very interesting. There is a total of 5 articles that start with obituaries, then continue on to what counties are taking a big hit, to what each person can do to avoid getting sick, to a poem about catching and suffering from the sickness, and the hope for a cure with a new vaccine. With the mention of children becoming orphaned, workers enduring diseased work places, and realization of where it came from, these articles most likely did not bring solace to the Denverites, moreover, it caused a

In 1918, the world witnessed an influenza outbreak that would come to be known as the Spanish Flu (Kamradt-Scott, 2012). The pandemic was believed to have started in the United States, but when the outbreak was finally over it had circumnavigated the world an estimated three times and took the lives of between twenty to fifty million members of the world population. This outbreak was said to have a negative impact of the troops that were currently fighting in World War 1 and was often referred to as a war time disease (Kamradt-Scott, 2012). With the government’s resistance to notify other countries to give them a significant advantage over American troops, it is highly likely; that the outbreak was worse than could have been had they just

The 1918 Flu Pandemic is considered to be one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history, estimated to have affected up to 33% and killing anywhere between 3% and 6% of the world population at the time. It killed up to 20% of those infected, as opposed to the usual flu epidemic mortality rate of 0.1%. The disease also distinguished itself in its morbidity and mortality patterns as it predominantly killed previously healthy young adults more than it did children and the elderly. Modern research on the bodies of frozen victims has concluded that the virus killed through an overreaction of the body's immune system. The stronger immune reactions of young adults resulted deadlier when compared to the weaker immune systems of children and

In the book The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, John Barry depicts an epidemic disease greater than anything the world has ever known. The story takes place during World War I, after a deadly virus breaks out during the war. The disease gradually increases as people carried it from country to country, spreading it to those who were not immune to it. With its speed, it ending up killing over one hundred million people across the globe in the span of a year. It killed more people in twenty-four months than the Black Death killed in a century. In this chronical, Barry illustrates the story of medicial men and their search to try and fight this epic disease.

Throughout the history, influenza viruses have caused several pandemics or global epidemics, killing many people. For example, the influenza strike in 1918 to 1919 infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide, which is one-third of the planet’s population at the time and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people. More than 25 percentage of the U.S. population were affected, and caused 675,000 deaths in U.S during the pandemic.(History, 2015). There were no effective treatments for this type of influenza and no available vaccines can prevent its spread during the period. (History, 2015) U.S government required general population to wear masks and other protective equipments in public areas, and many public places also closed due to the influenza strike. Health care providers tried everything they knew to save people, but none shows any evidence of effects. (National Center for Biotechnology Information [NCBI], 2015). Scientists found out that the influenza virus had invaded their lungs and caused pneumonia, which made so many people died from the pandemic (History,2015). Another influenza strike happened

The possibility of the disease spreading rapidly to other countries gives it a global dimension. This paper takes an approach to explain the source and the transmission of the condition. Further, the paper discusses why the condition has not yet got a vaccine compared to “Spanish” Influenza Pandemic another deadly outbreak in 1918-1919 with similar medical circumstances (Taubenberger and Morens, 2006). The paper would be restricted to the socio-political aspects while making a comparison and would try to exploit the context