| − | {{stub}}The Spanish Flu from 1918 - 1919 was a deadly strain of Influenza A virus which killed twenty million civilians and soldiers during World War I. This pandemic killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide. The flu did not originate in Spain but the Allies called it the “Spanish Flu.” It was called the Spanish Flu because it received greater press attention in Spain than anywhere else in the world. | + | {{stub}}'''The Spanish Flu''' from 1918 - 1919 was a deadly strain of [[Influenza]] A virus which killed twenty million civilians and soldiers during [[World_War_I|World War I]]. This [[pandemic]] killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide, more people in one year than the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Indeed, more people died from the Flu than from battle injuries in the war. The flu did not originate in Spain but the Allies called it the “Spanish Flu.” It was called the Spanish Flu because it received greater press attention in Spain than anywhere else in the world. More than one-fifth of the world's population was infected, in large part becuase of the close quarters of men living together in army camps, and because it was at the end of the war, as they returned they brought the disease back to the world. |
| | + | <br>This flu was most deadly for those in the healthy age groups, between 20-40 where most flu deaths occur in the elderly or the very young. The effect of the influenza epidemic was so severe that the average life span in the US was depressed by 10 years. The influenza virus had a profound virulence, with a mortality rate at 2.5% compared to the previous influenza epidemics, which were less than 0.1%. <ref>1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics: Jeffery Taubenberge, David Morens [http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no01/05-0979.htm] </ref> |