World News – UK – How the 1918 Spanish Flu spread death and devastation around the world

The Spanish pandemic flu from just over a century ago spread like wildfire from the Pacific Islands to the Arctic, infecting hundreds of millions of people, making it one of the worst medical disasters in history.

Here’s everything you need to know about the devastating outbreak – from how many people died to why it turned out to be so fatal.

Since the outbreak ended, a debate has raged among scientists about where the deadly strain of flu came from.

A long-standing theory has it that it originated in the state of Kansas, although other popular research has traced the disease to an overcrowded military and hospital camp in France during the final stages of World War I..

Scientists believed the dire conditions during the conflict provided fertile breeding ground for the disease, with chemical warfare, rotting corpses, and disease-riddled trenches.

It would also help explain the rate at which Spanish flu is spreading around the world and its propensity to kill young adults in far greater concentrations than other strains of influenza – which mostly affect the young and the elderly .

In recent years, a new theory has suggested that the disease originated in China, and the movement of nearly 100. 000 Chinese workers led to the Western Front to aid in the Allied war effort.

There’s no evidence that Spanish flu actually started in Spain – it got the nickname because of the disease’s increasing worldwide coverage that it received after reaching the nation in November 1918 and meeting King Alfonso XIII. infected.

During the war, censors attempted to downplay the severity of the outbreak in order to minimize its moral impact.

The initial outbreak of the disease was similar to previous flu epidemics. However, a second wave that occurred in the latter stages of 1918 brought with it a mutated, much more deadly flu virus.

Estimates of the number of people killed worldwide range from earlier figures of around 40 to 50 million to recent calculations of up to 100 million.

It is believed that approximately 10 to 20 percent of those infected during the pandemic lost their lives.

No corner of the world was untouched by the outbreak. 17 million people died in India alone. It is estimated that a fifth of the Iranian population was killed – up to 5 percent of the world population was killed.

It landed on the British coast around the same time the soldiers returned at the end of the war, and infected about a quarter of the country’s population, killing 250. 000 people.

Recent scientific research has shown that the specific H1N1 variant of influenza involved in Spanish flu was no more aggressive than previous strains.

Instead, the appalling death toll has been attributed to World War I circumstances, such as overcrowded, unsanitary hospitals and widespread worldwide travel, which helped the disease to spread at a devastating rate.

In addition to the tens of millions of deaths, the Spanish flu has also taken a significant economic toll. The communities were put down and could no longer work from the debilitating disease.

After the pandemic reached a terrible climax with its second wave, it ended relatively abruptly. One theory is that the virus mutates into a less lethal strain due to its lethality.

Although there have been other major flu pandemics, Spanish flu remains the most severe in history. The death toll and global impact are similar to that of the black death.

Pandemic, 1918, Thanksgiving Day, Spanish Flu, Influenza