The same story was repeated in countries around the world. It first appeared in Britain in Glasgow in May 1918, and during the next few months would go on to kill an estimated 228,000 people. In Germany over 400,000 people died in 1918, and a further 8 million were ill in Spain.. However, of all the countries India suffered most from the influenza pandemic with around 16 million deaths. That is almost twice the 8.5 million people that died globally in the First World War.

Then suddenly, in mid 1919 it dissappeared, never to show up again. It was then not until 1997, when the lungs of an eighteen-year-old soldier, Roscoe Vaughan, killed by the disease in September 1918, were used to obtain the genetic code of the disease. It was found that the disease started as a virus passed from birds to pigs. The pig immune system had forced the virus to mutate in order to survive, and it then infected humans. Again, this has alarming parallels to the SARS virus, which it is now believed might have originated with chickens in China.

1918 Flu Patient

As a result of the Influenza Pandemic in 1918, President Woodrow Wilson invested money into research into influenza and a vaccination program was begun. The Armistice Day celebrations of November 1918 were a public health disaster which helped to spread the flu amongst the enormous crowds. And we can see the 10 day quarantine measures that have been imposed in the wake of the SARS outbreak, and the attempts to stop public meetings and communal activities in affected areas as an approving nod to lessons learned from those times.

Whether the health authorities will be able to contain and control SARS remains to be seen. But that they should be given our full support to try everything in their power to stem the tide of the outbreak has the firm approval of history.

For more information:

Download the TV Documentary 'The Flu Time Bomb'
http://www.firstscience.com/home/firstscience.tv/flu-time-bomb_5.html