What You Need To Know About Flu Epidemics

Influenza epidemics mowed down millions of people even before there were not only vaccines, but various health committees. Traces of viruses of what we today call "flu" were found in ancient burials and descriptions of the life of ancient people. Influenza in its classical understanding has been known since the end of the 16th century and has been walking triumphantly around the planet ever since. True, now she has a different name and a lot of epithets. Let's turn to history and take a look at some of the most formidable and, importantly, documented flu epidemics in history.

The first officially recorded epidemic of influenza (1889-1892)

Virus type: H3N2

Despite the fact that the flu existed earlier, it was 1889 that is considered to be the starting point for the appearance of this disease. Although earlier people had experienced all the "delights" of this disease, no one was able to uniquely indicate it. And only at the end of the 19th century, the German doctor Richard Pfeiffer isolated a bacterium from the sputum of patients, similar to a stick, which, according to his speculations, was the cause of the worldwide malaise. Confirmed the guesses of Pfeiffer and his French colleagues (that the flu is caused by a virus, and not a bacterium, will become known only in 1933). The problem was that the hero of the occasion was “found”, but there was nothing to treat people from him, because viruses do not lend themselves to antibacterial therapy.

Spanish flu, or "Spanish flu" (1918-1919)

Virus type: H1N1

The outbreak of the pandemic came at the end of the First World War and, as they say, overshadowed all other events of that time. In the 18 months that influenza has been victorious around the world, approximately 50-100 million people have died because of it. For comparison, the total losses of all the belligerents, including soldiers, officers and civilians during the First World War, were, according to various estimates, 18-20 million people. The "Spanish flu" is considered one of the largest disasters in human history. Contrary to popular belief, the pandemic did not start in Spain, but in the United States. And quickly spread to both continents.

However, the military censorship of those years (yes, then censorship also existed) forbade reporting in the media about a terrible disease that mowed down the ranks of soldiers. The disease could not even be called influenza, and they came up with the name "flu", that is, "invader", "ailment". By the way, the symptoms of that flu were more than spectacular: the sick had difficulty breathing, and at the last stages they coughed up blood, for which this disease was called "purple death". The mortality rate was impressive. There were even rumors among the warring parties about some spies from across the ocean who brought a terrible poison to Europe. As a result, Spain was the first to sound the alarm about the epidemic, which did not take part in hostilities. For which she received the undeserved stigma of the epidemic focus. By the way, there is an opinion that "Spanish Flu" is one of the first forms of bird flu,the most insidious and dangerous of all viruses in the case of mutation involving the human influenza virus. It is believed that the Spanish flu virus was the result of the recombination of avian and human influenza viruses.

"Historical" flu epidemic (1933-1935)

Virus type: H1N1

And we called it historical because it was at this time that a malignant virus was discovered, so generously transmitted from person to person over a long period of time. In 1933, another flu epidemic occurred in England, and British scientists, who have not yet become heroes of anecdotes, decided by all means to find out how, what and why kills a person. Three experts from the National Institute of Medical Research Wilson Smith, Christopher Andrews and Patrick Laidlaw decided to re-infect all the animals they knew with this insidious disease in order to find out the root cause. The only one who succumbed to the flu was one of the ferrets, who sneezed at one of the scientists during his health check. The latter fell ill with the flu a few days later. So one of the first pathogens of the disease was isolated - the type A influenza virus.

Asian flu (1957-1958)

Virus type: H2N2

A new round in the development of influenza was made in the middle of the twentieth century. It began to spread from the Far East and went around the world, reaching the United States, where the largest number of infected people died. In total, 1-2 million people died from the new virus (the numbers are approximate, since in Asian countries it has always been difficult with the census).

Hong Kong flu (1968-1969)

Virus type: H3N2

The cause was the mutated Asian flu virus. The first patients were recorded in Hong Kong, then the infected were found in the United States. The most affected by this type of flu are the elderly over 65.

Russian flu (1976-1978)

Virus type: H1N1

The pandemic began in the USSR, and, worst of all, it mowed down mostly young people. The main patients seeking help were children and adults under 25 years of age (read also: "To do everything: how to work when a child is ill at home"). This was simply explained: this virus was already known from the pandemics of 1918 and 1947, so those who were born much later than 1947 fell ill with it (and the rest had already developed immunity to this virus). The course of the flu was relatively mild with few complications. However, according to average estimates, about 300 thousand people died from the new disease.

Avian influenza or classic avian plague (2003-2008)

Virus type: H5N1

Of course it could not be called an epidemic, but this type of flu scared us very much. Avian influenza is an infectious viral disease of birds. In most cases, bird-to-human transmission is not possible, but some of the mutated viruses of this flu can still cause severe infections in humans. Passed at the beginning of the 2000s, this disease was classified not only as especially dangerous, but also as economically difficult. Since the first step in the fight against the virus was the point about the destruction of poultry. By the way, this form of influenza, fortunately for all of us, has not become widespread. For all the years since the first officially recorded case of human infection with this virus, there are only a few thousand people who have recovered (according to official data). However, it is this form of influenza that has the highest percentage of deaths due to complications associated with infection - almost 50%.

Swine flu or "Mexican" (2009-2010, 2016)

Virus type: H1N1

The buzzword and enrichment of pharmaceutical companies in 2009, swine flu returned to hot news in 2016. Swine flu is common among domestic pigs in the United States, Mexico, Canada, South America, Europe, Africa and other countries in Asia. The virus can infect both animals and humans and birds, accompanied by its various mutations. In 2009, the WHO announced a swine flu pandemic, the next mutation of which was successful enough to make all vaccines that existed at that time useless water.

Pharmacists from all over the world began racing hastily to develop new drugs against the new "mutant". The created vaccines directly from laboratories, without proper study, migrated to clinics and were massively purchased by the governments of Europe and America. In July 2010, the European Parliamentary Assembly approved a report accusing WHO of colluding with pharmaceutical companies to fortify. The report said that WHO unreasonably overestimated the scale of the epidemic, artificially fueled public fears about the threats and spread of swine flu. As a result of these actions, the budgets of many countries suffered serious losses: for example, the German government, for example, purchased new vaccines for this form of the flu for 239 million euros, but these vaccines were never in demand (due to the actual limited spread of the disease).

8 facts about the flu

Influenza is one of the most common infectious diseases. It is believed that 95% of all infectious diseases in the world are due to influenza. According to statistics, about 35 million cases are registered in Russia every year.
Really dangerous epidemics and pandemics of influenza occur 2-3 times in 100 years and they are caused when, as a result of a chain of mutations and transmutations, a type of virus arises against which most people have no immunity. Moreover, almost always we are talking about the influenza A virus.
At first, scientists thought that the flu was caused by bacteria, but later it became clear that the cause of the disease was a virus. American Richard Shoupe discovered in 1931 that the disease arises from a virus, and in 1933 Briton Wilson Smith isolated the influenza type A. influenza type C (see also: "Diagnosis by the mirror: how to determine the disease by the face").
It is known that in the external environment the virus remains active for 72 hours, and people infected with influenza are dangerous to others for 7-10 days.

Vaccination is considered to be the most effective method of preventing influenza or its severe consequences. On this occasion, there are many assumptions about the existence of a conspiracy of pharmaceutical companies. Whether this is so is difficult to say with certainty.
On January 26, 2016, the Moscow authorities announced the beginning of an epidemic of influenza and SARS, as the incidence rate exceeded the estimated epidemic threshold by 37.8%. The threshold for influenza and ARVI in the Moscow region has been exceeded by 47%. There were also 41 cases of swine flu.
The flu can spread with banknotes. On money, the virus can persist for up to 17 days. At the same time, it is worth clarifying that, in general, the influenza virus at a temperature of about zero can exist for about a month, and live forever in frozen form.
The virus is in many ways dangerous due to the extremely high mutation rate. It can change more in a day than the human genome has changed in several million years. The latter means that if the virus changes greatly, then the previously acting medicine may no longer work.

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