The Importance Of Influenza

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 Great Influenza is a book not many enjoy. However, Dr. Petri enjoys this book for reasons that are lost to many. The book starts off on part one chapter 1 the Warriors. it starts off with imagery of September 12, 1876 talking about it crowd in an auditorium in Baltimore’s Academy of music. this was too launch John Hopkins University where they say they would change all of American education and in this first page you meet Thomas H. Huxley an English scientist who is the keynote speaker of this event. then give me George Armstrong Custer who “led the seventh Cavalry to with the stretching at the hands of him video savages resisting encroachment of the white man.” customer had spoke on the front page of the Washington star. then the book starts going deeper into detail

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 1918 has gone: a year momentous as the termination of the most cruel war in the annals of the human race; a year which marked, the end at least for a time, of man's destruction of man; unfortunately a year in which developed a most fatal infectious disease causing the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of all--infectious disease (Billings, 2005)." The influenza in 1919 was much bigger than a cold. In the two years that this disease swept the world one fifth of the population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of death was unusual for influenza which usually killed the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all Americans. An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during this pandemic, about ten times as many as in World War 1. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them were killed by the influenza virus and not to the enemy. An estimated 43,000 soldiers who were sent for WWI died of influenza. The worldwide influenza epidemic adversely affected the U.S., both in the states and the soldiers at war. Subsequently, in the lack of medicine, lack of skilled doctors, and the lack of soldier preparation.

People are dying every second to a variety of reasons, some that could be prevented others where that is not the case. However, experts agree that influenza and influenza related deaths could be significantly prevented if people took the influenza vaccine annually. The influenza virus is a deadly virus that has been killing people since the 1900s; in 1918 the first recorded epidemic of a strain of influenza known as the Spanish flu killed approximately 50 million people ("Pandemic Flu History"). Because people did not know what the virus was or how to fight against it, it spread very fast. However, after the vaccine was made, later epidemics such as the 1957, 1968, and 2009 epidemics were not as fatal, killing approximately one million people worldwide. Vaccines played a large role in human history in fighting and preventing diseases from annihilating human beings. This paper will discuss the economic aspects of whether it should be mandatory for hospital health care workers to take the flu vaccine.

When Europeans first came to this continent, they brought diseases with them, such as smallpox, influenza, and tuberculosis. Later, slaves shipped to America from Africa brought even more diseases, such as yellow fever and malaria. Ever since, American history has been riddled with infectious diseases and epidemics. Although the United States has eliminated some horrible diseases that plagued it in the past, and helped other countries cope with epidemics, deadly diseases still pose problems in America.

In the book, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, John Barry discusses the 1918 influenza pandemic. In the prologue, Paul Lewis, a physician who spent most of his time in the laboratory, was introduced. He had encountered the disease only once, but he had seen the devastating affects it had on the human body and this was enough impetus for him to try to end this virus. After the prologue, Barry shifts the topic to medicine in America (this was my favorite part of the book). Admission into medical school wasn’t based on academic scholarship or merit; instead, it was based on whether the applicant could pay the tuition. So William Henry Welch established the John Hopkins School of Medicine, a school that would

Avian influenza is a disease that has been wreaking havoc on human populations since the 16th century. With the recent outbreak in 1997 of a new H5N1 avian flu subtype, the world has begun preparing for a pandemic by looking upon its past affects. In the 20th Century, the world witnessed three pandemics in the years of 1918, 1957, and 1968. In 1918 no vaccine, antibiotic, or clear recognition of the disease was known. Killing over 40 million in less than a year, the H1N1 strain ingrained a deep and lasting fear of the virus throughout the world. Though 1957 and 1968 brought on milder pandemics, they still killed an estimated 3 million people and presented a new

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

Each winter season brings the horrid infectious disease, influenza also commonly known as “the flu.” Just in the past week, over 250 cases of positive specimens were gathered with it being the highest week in the year of 2017. Influenza has already been in full force this winter, with many people around Australia falling ill. Everyone in their lifetime suffers from the nasty flu as sometime in their life, but for some, it’s a critical and complicated disease. In the selected years of 2006, 2010 and 2015, influenza was one of the leading causes of death. Influenza and pneumonia are at rank 12, with 2015 having at least 3,402 deaths, more than breast cancer. “There has been a total of 12, 360 laboratories confirmed notifications of influenza

Doctors tried everything they can think of to treat patients with influenza such as primeval heal-ing of bleeding patients, to administering oxygen, and to developing new vaccines. Only a par-ticular healing method helped to contract the Spanish influenza was transfusing blood from re-covered patients to new victims, which in turned exhibited slightly hint of success in treating pa-tients . For the time being, the general public used home tonics of every description to moderate the symptoms. Nonetheless, did not showed any evidence of stopping the spread of the disease. A unique distinctive feature of the 1918 pandemic, is the relation of the virus with the human immune system, associated with the mortality rate with a certain age category

Influenza virus infection remains one of the largest disease burdens on humankind. Influenza-associated bacterial co-infections contribute to severe disease and mortality, during pandemic and seasonal influenza episodes. The mechanisms of severe morbidity following influenza-bacterial co-infections mainly include failure of an antibacterial immune response and synergy of the pathogens. Moreover, the failure to resume function and tolerance is one of the main reasons for excessive mortality. In this review, some new advances of the mechanisms of severe disease associated with bacterial co-infections following influenza virus infection are discussedreviewed. Analysis of these mechanisms should help to develop novel approaches for the prevention and treatment of severe influenza virus co-infections.

Around 5 million people worldwide are affected annually by the influenza A virus (IAV), with infection resulting in severe morbidity and sometimes death. Although effective IAV vaccines exist, annual influenza epidemics occur due to its ability to quickly evolve new strains. Therefore, IAV remains a serious public health threat as evidenced by the recent pandemics involving swine H1N1 and avian H7N9. Thus, there is a vital need to develop more effective vaccines against influenza. Normally, vaccines function by priming the immune system to recognize a pathogen so that the body can more easily identify and eliminate it upon a second encounter. This protective immunity relies on receptors in the innate immune system such as the pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and retinoic acid inducible gene I (RIG-I). In contrast, Nod-like receptors (NLRs) sense cellular damage as a result of infection and engage the inflammasome. Inflammasomes are multiprotein complexes that stimulate the secretion of inflammatory cytokines. Recent work by Pang et al. examined the relevance of host recognition of viral PAMPs versus virus-inflicted damage in linking innate recognition of IAV to adaptive immunity. Mediation of adaptive immunity to IAV is attributed to production of interleukin-1α (IL-1α) and IL-1β, cleavage products of the inflammatory cytokine IL-1. Pang et al. provided evidence that induction of an adaptive CD8+ T cell response did not depend on PRRs

Illnesses have long haunted the human race. As long as these illnesses have existed, humans have developed ways to cure themselves, beginning with simple herbs and proceeding as far as vaccines and complex medicines. One cure that long eluded scientists was that of the influenza virus. Now, the influenza vaccine, or flu shot, saves thousands of lives a year and helps prevent serious complications resulting from influenza infection.

Influenza virus has been causing recurrent epidemics of acute febrile syndrome every 1 to 4 years for at least recent centuries. The first epidemic report of the influenza like illness was noted in 1173-1174,1 but the first definitive epidemic was reported in 1694.2 The greatest pandemic in recorded history occurred in 1918-99 when approximately 21 million deaths were recorded worldwide.3 it was among the deadliest events in reported human history. After that Three others have occurred in the twentieth century: the 1957 H2N2 pandemic, the 1968 H3N2 pandemic and the 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus (pH1N1). In the recent event an influenza strain with a combination of gene segments not previously reported in swine or human influenza virus