Influenza History - A Deadly Virus From The Past

Nothing Ever Been So Terrifying Than Influenza. And The Threat Keeps Going On...

The influenza history started as early as the fifth century B.C. This could be one of the oldest diseases known to mankind.

The first one to point out the symptoms of the flu (although he doesn't name it "flu" per say) is Hippocrates, commonly regarded as the Father of Medicine.

In his works called the "Hippocrates Corpus", he describes the symptoms of the influenza virus for the first time, in approximately 412 B.C.

Since then, the virus has kept some of these symptoms, but in the same time, it has lost others and developed new ones. Actually, that's the hardest part about keeping track of the flu over time: the fact that it's one of the fastest evolving viruses on the planet, with radical evolution steps from season to season.

Influenza Pandemic - From Past to Present

Throughout time, the flu has been reported to produce pandemic outbursts, claiming millions of lives during recorded influenza history. Signs of a milder pandemic took place in pre-medieval Athens but the first full pandemic was recorded in 1580.

Since then, pandemics broke loose on a relatively predictable timer, with roughly 3-4 pandemics every century, each with its own mortality rate, depending on the power of the particular virus (in some pandemics, the virus spread more easily, but its effects were not as deadly as on other occasions).

Spanish Flu (1918-1920)

In influenza history, 1918 marked the appearance of a pandemic case of influenza which was known as the "Spanish Flu". This type of influenza spread throughout the world quickly and caused many deaths.

The main reason that the illness spread so swiftly is likely due to the fact that World War I was underway and troops were moving from country to country at a quick pace.

The virus behind the Spanish Flu, the H1N1 was an "antigenic shift", or a combination of two different viral strains that combined, formed a newer, deadlier one.

When the Spanish Flu ended in 1920, it already infected over 500 million people worldwide, of which at least 40 millions died. In comparison, the First World War "only" took approximately 15 million lives, of which roughly 9 million were military personnel.

In the United States, approximately 500,000 people died at the hands of the Spanish flu.

One of the few countries that weren't vastly affected by the biggest plague throughout influenza history, that is Spanish Flu was Japan, since their leaders realized the threat that the flu presented and responded accordingly. They essentially locked off their island from the world, restricting travel and successfully heading off the flu, which died out after about 18 months.

For getting more complete description about 1918 Spanish Influenza, click here

Asian Flu (1957-1958)

1957 was the next year written in history of influenza as a global pandemic of influenza would strike. This strain was known as the Asian flu, due to the fact that it began infecting people in China first.

When all was said and done, over 70,000 United States citizens were dead from the illness, and took 1.5 million lives worldwide.

One frightening aspect of the Asian flu is the fact that those who are under age thirty in the United States have no developed immunities to the strain.

Hong Kong Flu (1968-1969)

Another pandemic in influenza history would occur ten years later, when the Hong Kong flu was discovered in, of all places, Hong Kong. 1968 and 1969 were the two years in which the illness circulated, and it caused around 34,000 deaths in the United States and around 1 million worldwide.

This strain of influenza is still circulating in the world today.

Russian Flu (1977)

The Russian flu came about in 1977, and it closely mirrored the strain that caused the Asian flu. Due to the circumstances, those who were alive when the Asian flu circulated had some level of immunity against this strain. However, those who were too young to have been alive when the Asian flu circulated were at a high risk for developing the illness.

This could be the first fully recorded pandemics in influenza history since ever, however its death rate was not very high. The Russian Flu opened the eyes of international medicine and science, which doubled their efforts in finding cures and prevention methods in case of a new pandemic.

Avian Flu (1997)

In the year 1997, the newest threat to humanity from influenza was discovered in influenza history. Known as H5N1, or the Avian flu, this strain of influenza may well prove to be the next pandemic that we face. In this year, the flu was discovered to have been transferred between a bird and a human.

If the virus learns how to transmit itself from human to human, the conditions for a pandemic will be set. We can only hope that we discover a way to contain this deadly infection.

What Have We Learned?

Humans usually study history with one thing in mind: to learn the lessons of the past and apply them to the present. People did the same thing as a result of learning history of influenza. As deadly as the past three pandemics have been, they have been beneficial to the research of influenza.

Various methods have been used to prevent and treat the flu during the Dark Ages and medicine and science worked together in finding the causes of the malady.

The family of viruses that produces the flu, the orthomyxoviridae, was discovered relatively late, in 1933, by the United Kingdom's Research Council. At that time however, the biggest pandemic flu in history had already unleashed its fury over the World, during 1918 and 1920.

At present, the flu is much less of a menace than it was a hundred years ago, the darkest side of influenza history. However, it is still a very real danger; and much of this danger stems from the fact that the flu viruses evolve. That is, they change from year to year and are in a state of constant mutation. This makes it difficult to vaccinate and treat the virus.

Each year, a practically new vaccine is created by using the flu virus strains that are currently in circulation. Should the time come that the virus mutates to a form that the present vaccines cannot touch then the world will be in big, big trouble.**

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