Duel Without End by Stig S. Frøland

Author:Stig S. Frøland [Frøland, Stig S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789145069
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Spanish Flu, 1918: the mother of all pandemics

Nearly thirty years after the influenza pandemic of 1889–90, an influenza virus struck again, giving rise to a pandemic that has probably never been surpassed when it comes to the number of deaths in the space of just a few months.369 Probably at least 500 million people were infected, a third of the world’s population. This influenza was also uncommonly serious. Certain researchers have claimed that up to 100 million people died during this pandemic, although some new research reports have raised doubts about these extremely high figures.370

In 1918 the First World War was entering its final phase. Millions of young men had fallen on the battlefield, some in huge individual battles and some in the endless trench war on the European continent. And then the warring nations and their civilian populations were hit by a new disaster: an influenza pandemic that, in the course of a year, was to leave an indelible mark on most of the inhabited world. This pandemic was given the name ‘Spanish Flu’, and it had a number of characteristics that clearly distinguished it from normal influenza epidemics, of which people had a certain amount of experience. Why was it called the Spanish Flu? Quite simply because the warring powers, for tactical reasons, had censored information about the explosive new disease, while Spain, which stood outside the hostilities, had no restrictions placed on featuring the sensational news of the pandemic in the newspapers, with the Spanish king, Alfonso XIII, and several of his ministers going down with the illness.371

The pandemic developed in Europe in three partially separate waves with fairly short interludes – in itself something of a surprise.372 The first wave started in March 1918. There is still considerable disagreement as to where the virus first appeared on the scene. A common view is that it did so at Camp Funston, a U.S. Army camp in Kansas, and that the virus was then spread by American troops transported to ports in France.373 Others believe that the virus might have started in Europe, perhaps in a large British military camp in northern France.374 This camp lay on an important route for migrating birds from East Asia, so the virus could have been brought by birds that infected local hens and geese. China has also been suspected as the country of origin, partly because a large number of Chinese migrant workers came to North America at that time, but there is little evidence to support this theory. Perhaps the geographical origins of the Spanish Flu will never be known.

The first wave of influenza spread rapidly during the following months to both warring parties and the civilian population, and then swiftly moved on to Asia. Many people became infected, but initially the symptoms were no more serious than with ordinary seasonal influenza. However, it was soon obvious that a strikingly large percentage of the most serious cases were people between twenty and forty years of age, who normally get off lightly with influenza.

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