from the New York Times, and just on the eve of the
1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic
The
influenza season is just getting started in the United States, and it
already promises to be more severe than usual. Hospital emergency rooms
are filling up with flu sufferers, and pharmacies have reported medicine shortages.
Twelve children had died as of last month. To make matters worse, in
Australia, which experienced its flu season four to six months ago, the
current vaccine appeared to be only about 10 percent effective against
this year’s dominant strain.
Yet
as bad as this winter’s epidemic is, it won’t compare with the flu
pandemic that is almost certainly on the horizon if we don’t dedicate
energy and resources to a universal vaccine.
Influenza
pandemics occur when a novel animal flu virus acquires the ability to
infect humans and they, in turn, transmit it to other humans. The
1918-19 Spanish flu epidemic (which despite the name may have originated
in the American Midwest) killed 50 million to 100 million around the
globe. Accounts at the time described people falling ill in the morning
and dying that night.
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