Deadliest Epidemics

One of the most virulent strains of influenza in history ravaged the world and decimated the populations around the world. Present during World War I, the 1918 strain of pandemic influenza found many opportunities to spread through the war. At the time, science wasn’t advanced enough to study the virus, much less find a cure; medical personnel were helpless when it came to fighting the disease, and so the flu went on to infect millions and kill at a rate 25 times higher than the standard.

This influenza occurred at the latter point of “World War 1” coming at a vulnerable time for the world. Many people have already died due to the war, and many resources and money has already been consumed. So when the pandemic hit, it hit with a charge that left a great wound in the economy and health of the people not just in the U.S. but the world. People responded by taking more precautions in health and safety, and took radical response in the exterminating of animal populations.

There hasn’t been any epidemics that have affected America since the settling of the United States except for the common cold and flu. Epidemic means “a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time” according to google.com. The smallpox epidemic of 1775-1782 included many details common to epidemics and caused damage and destruction to property and lives that affected the region, but the area has recovered in the aftermath.

The world has experienced a total of four pandemics within the twentieth century. These pandemics, as horrific and deadly as they are, have brought so much more positive advances to our health care system and how we prepare for biological threats. Although we are in the twenty-first century and we have advanced so far in healthcare, there is still the possibility of a deadly pandemic.

In 1918, at the end of World War I, the Spanish flu struck the US. Research says that the estimated amount of deaths are somewhere between 20-40 million people worldwide. The Spanish flu was one of the most devastating pandemics in modern history. The Spanish flu was something the medical world had never seen and affected the people living in California greatly.

The book The Great Influenza by John Barry takes us back to arguably one of the greatest medical disasters in human history, the book focuses on the influenza pandemic which took place in the year 1918. The world was at war in the First World War and with everyone preoccupied with happenings in Europe and winning the war, the influenza pandemic struck when the human race was least ready and most distracted by happenings all over the world. In total the influenza pandemic killed over a hundred million people on a global scale, clearly more than most of the deadliest diseases in modern times. John Barry leaves little to imagination in his book as he gives a vivid description of the influenza pandemic of 1918 and exactly how this pandemic affected the human race. The book clearly outlines the human activities that more or less handed the human race to the influenza on a silver platter. “There was a war on, a war we had to win” (Barry, p.337). An element of focus in the book is the political happenings back at the time not only in the United States of America but also all over the world and how politicians playing politics set the way for perhaps the greatest pandemic in human history to massacre millions of people. The book also takes an evaluator look at the available medical installations and technological proficiencies and how the influenza pandemic has affected medicine all over the world.

The virus that caused the pandemic was a strain of H1N1 Influenza A that killed through a cytokine storm (overreacting the bodies immune system). This is why healthy adults had a higher death rate than elderly people or children. The name "Spanish Flu" comes from the fact that Spain was the only country reporting on the outbreak while other countries suppressed the outbreak to keep morale up as WWI was happening.[1] The pandemic had two main waves in 1918 and was gone by 1920. The Spanish Flu killed 50 to 100 million people (3%-5% of the worlds population at the time) and around 500 million people were infected. The life expectancy in the U.S in 1918 dropped by 12 years as a result of the disease.[2]After the second deadly wave hit in 1918,

The first wave of the epidemic, however, was followed by a more fatal second and third wave in the fall and winter of 1918-1919. (Taubenberger) The second wave of the virus emerged in late August and was even more deadly. By the end of September, 50,000 people in Massachusetts had contracted the flu, and in New York, 851 people died in a single day. There were so many deaths in San Francisco and Chicago that the cities banned funerals. October 1918 became the deadliest month in US history, with 195,000 fatalities from the flu. By the end of the third wave, the average life expectancy in the United States dropped by 12

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

Influenza, normally called “the flu”, the influenza virus causes an infection in the respiration tract. Even though the influenza virus can sometimes be compared with the common cold. It also can cause a more severe illness or death. During this past century, pandemics took place in 1918, 1957, and 1968, in all of these cases there where unfortunately many deaths. The “Spanish flu” in 1918, killed approximately half a million people in the United States alone. It killed around 20 million worldwide. The “Asian flu” in 1957, in the United States their 70,000 people died. In 1968 the “Hong-Kong flu” There where 34,000 deaths in the United

In the ten months between September 1918 and June 1919, 675,000 Americans died of influenza and pneumonia. When compared to the number of Americans killed in combat in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam combined- 423,000- it becomes apparent that the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 was far more deadly than the war which it accompanied. (Crosby, 206-207) The United States and the rest of the world had been exposed to such epidemics in the past, but never at such a severe cost in human life.

At no time was a search for the cure for influenza more frantic than after the devastating effects of the pandemic of 1918. The pandemic killed somewhere between twenty and a hundred million people, making it twenty five times more deadly than the ordinary cough and sneeze flu. The symptoms of this flu

The 1918 pandemic was known as the “Spanish Flu” and was Influenza strain A(H1N1) and it caused the highest known influenza death rate known, 500,000 Americans and 20 million people worldwide.

In my opinion between the bird flu, the Spanish flu, and says the deadliest disease I think is the deadliest is the bird flu because it started by chickens like people have chickens at there house and it is close to there kitchen so the disease can go on to there food and make the people have the disease.I also think that the bird flu is the deadliest because it is passed on to other people, which is called an epidemic.and if the doctors don’t isolate the patients who have the disease it would become a pandemic.

In 1890, the first appearance recorded of a destructive influenza pandemic struck, killing many Americans. Those who survived lived on to experience the 1918 pandemic and tended to be more immune to the disease. By May 1918, reports of severe