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Just over a century ago, the world was struggling with one of the deadliest pandemics in history. At least 50 million people, or 3% of the world's population, were killed by the Spanish flu pandemic that swept the planet, killing many more people than in the First World War, which also took place at the same time. 39; era.
Although much has changed since the end of this chapter of the 20th century, the history of the Spanish flu is still a good lesson not to underestimate the pathogens with which we share the Earth. As a new study says, the epidemic highlights the importance of immunization programs and risks of complacency in communicable diseases in a globalized world.
Write in the newspaper Human and Immunotherapeutic Vaccines, a virologist and a historian explained in detail how the Spanish flu was born from its humble beginnings and conquered the world in a few years. They argue that the Spanish flu can appeared in Europe two years earlier than it was thought around 1915. During these two years, the virus was largely ignored and termed a "minor respiratory infection".
By the time this was taken seriously, around 1918, the virus had mutated to become an entirely different type of beast and it was too late to deploy effective vaccination programs.
"By and large, the virus must have mutated, it has lost much of its virulence, but has gained significant spread," said Professor John S. Oxford, Britain's leading expert on influenza, in a statement. . Press release. "Recent experiments on a pre-pandemic" bird flu "called H5N1, deliberately mutated in the laboratory, have shown that at least five mutations could have made this change possible."
"Once the virus is able to spread from human to human, a disaster occurs.With a generation of two to three days, out of three patients originally infected, a million of infections can be caused in about 40 days, exactly what happened in 1918-1919, "conclude in their article Professor Oxford and Douglas Gill, military historian.
The tandem was able to track the origins of the virus using a combined approach of scientific methods, such as phylogenetics and molecular clock badysis, as well as historical documents, such as newspaper articles and physician reports. .
Despite its name, it has long been established that the pandemic has not started in Spain. This name only is born because Spain was one of the few great powers to remain neutral during the First World War. Allied nations and central powers had instituted severe wartime censorship in order to maintain good morale and control the narrative, while the Spanish media were free to report the seriousness of the disease, giving the illusion that the virus was particularly prevalent.
Instead, this new badysis argues that it began in England and France. They identify two detailed medical reports dating back to 1917 and explaining how two groups of British soldiers became ill at Etaples in France and at Aldershot in England in 1916. In both cases, the disease was characterized by a rapid progression of symptoms quite minors. to death, but the diagnosis of a highly contagious influenza strain was omitted. This new study says that it is indeed at the origin of the Spanish flu.
If the researchers had detected the severity of the virus in 1916, the study says they would have had better reasons to launch a vaccination program and reduce the flu epidemic, potentially saving millions of lives.
"Something similar to what happened in the early 20th century could easily be repeated," Professor Oxford warned. "As a precaution, governments around the world are stocking pneumococcal vaccines that typically develop as a secondary infection after influenza and cause large-scale deaths."
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