The 1918 H1N1 flu pandemic, sometimes referred to as the “Spanish flu,” killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including an estimated 675,000 people in the United States. Since the pandemic of the Spanish flu, researchers dedicated themselves to identifying the origins and nature of the virus. During the pandemic of 1918-19, the so-called “Spanish Flu” killed 50-100 million people, including many soldiers. 10. 1 The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. But according to experts, all the pandemics that occurred after the tragedy were caused by derivatives of the H1N1 influenza that caused the Spanish flu. 2018 marked the … It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. The virus that caused the 1918 influenza pandemic probably sprang from North American domestic and wild birds, not from the mixing of human and swine viruses. In 1918 the US population was 103.2 million. The 1918 outbreak has been called the Spanish flu because Spain, which remained neutral during World War I, was the first country to publicly report cases of the disease. Before COVID-19, the most severe pandemic in recent history was the 1918 influenza virus, often called “the Spanish Flu.” The virus infected roughly 500 million people—one-third of the world’s population—and caused 50 million deaths worldwide (double the number of deaths in World War I). The Spanish flu killed quickly, and it killed in huge numbers. They also stated that the combination of a virus with bacteria is far more deadly then both separately are. McBean “The 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’ started in American military Camp Funston, Fort Riley, USA, amongst troops making ready for W.W.I – taking on board vaccinations, recruit training and […] The Spanish flu was in the same category of severity as the Bubonic Plague, which, when it struck as the Black Death, killed about 75 million people, 25-50 million of them in Europe. I have a personal connection to the Spanish Flu. 1,2,3,4 An unusual characteristic of this virus was the high death rate it caused among healthy adults 15 to 34 years of age. Aug 22, 2008 (CIDRAP News) – It was secondary bacterial pneumonia—not the influenza virus by itself—that killed most of the millions who perished in the 1918 flu pandemic, which suggests that current pandemic preparations should include stockpiling of antibiotics and bacterial vaccines, influenza researchers reported this week. Burials in mass graves were part of the times. The backdrop of World War I was also hugely instrumental in the transmission of the virus that caused Spanish flu. Starting in the mid-1990s, Jeffrey Taubenberger, MD, PhD , and his team were able to carry out a sequence and phylogenetic analysis of 1918 influenza virus genes and identified it to be an H1N1 virus of avian origin. The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 was a horrific assault on health as the virus spread without containment, much like COVID19. Between 0.8% (164,800) and 3.1% (638,000) of those infected died from influenza or pneumonia secondary to it. Cytokine storm is the body's over-reaction to infection. Historians now believe that the fatal severity of the Spanish flu’s “second wave” was caused by a mutated virus spread by wartime troop movements. US Vaccines Caused ‘Spanish Flu’ “It was a common expression during the war that “more soldiers were killed by vaccine shots than by shots from enemy guns.”–E. Morens et al (2008) found that during the Spanish flu “the majority of deaths … likely resulted directly from secondary bacterial pneumonia caused by common upper respiratory–tract bacteria.” 21 The study sought to learn more about the “causes of deaths associated with influenza pandemics” by studying the 1918-1919 Spanish Influenza pandemic. In 2008, Dr. Anthony Fauci co-wrote a paper with two colleagues explaining that influenza was not the predominant cause of death during the 1918 flu pandemic.