Dangerous And Virulent

1- FORGOTTEN PANDEMIC:

Perhaps until recently, the Spanish Flu has been what some people call a "forgotten pandemic.'But it was a huge global calamity.In terms of the number of deaths, we're saying 50 to 100 million - far greater than the casualties of the first world war.

Roughly around May, April May 1918 when you know the carnage of the First World War is graphic and horrendous but at  the same time, this unknown enemy is starting to sweep through the US, Europe,the trenches, and it is recorded by the Spanish press and it becomes dubbed as

2- SPANISH FLU:

Because they are neutral, the Spanish press documents the situation in the trenches, and it is termed the "Spanish flu." In the 1920s, the death toll was estimated to reach around 20 million. That number had risen to 25 million by the late twentieth century. That amount has now been raised to fifty to a hundred million persons who died in the twenty-first century, with scientists and historians now working together much more closely. 

This virus killed more individuals in the first 25 weeks than HIV/AIDS had killed in the previous 25 years - it was horrific! Those figures on mortality are mind-blowing. We don't know why some flu strains are far more dangerous than others.

3-SYMPTOMS:

An invasion of white blood cells and fluids into our lungs occurs as a result of a powerful immune response, limiting the quantity of air space available to us to breathe. The symptoms are dramatic and stunning, and it's been reported that some people drowned in their own phlegm, so if it was affecting the lungs, people were spurting blood from their ears and noses. Individuals were described as becoming blue or purple, indicating that the situation was really serious, with people simply collapsing in the streets. Those who died from the flu were between the ages of 20 and 40, which is unusual for an influenza epidemic or pandemic, according to scientists and historians.

4-CONDITIONS OF THE WAR:

People died in 1918 in one of two ways: either from the initial flu infection or from an incredibly strong immune reaction to the virus, in which their lungs simply filled up with fluids from trying to battle the virus that had gotten into their lungs. So everyone used to say, "Oh, it's the trenches, you know the conditions of the war, that's why it was so lethal," but when you think about it, how did it travel so quickly around the world to countries that weren't even in the theatre of war? I believe the classic theory is that it begins in a military camp in Kansas, and then the men transport it to the trenches in Europe. 

5-ADOPTION

The main question then becomes: how does the virus adapt within that individual to stop being a pig or bird virus and instead become a human virus? In other words, to be able to transmit from human to human, and it's probably some very quick evolutionary process that's going on within that human, and in many cases, we won't be successful, but in a few cases we will, and that's when the virus can start spreading between humans and become a flu pandemic, before remaining in humans as regular seasonal flu. It appeared to be fading down just as people were commemorating Armistice Day, but it resurfaced and a far more dangerous and virulent form arose. 

So mathematical modelers have long been fascinated by the 1918 pandemic, and one of their main goals is to figure out how it moved over the world and what paths it took. You could go backward from perfect data to try to figure out where it came from. Where does it arrive in a country, does it arrive numerous times, or when considering multiple countries, where does it start? If you understand the origins of a pandemic, you'll have a better knowledge of where it came from and may be able to prevent it in the future. Originally, it was almost likely bird flu, but we also know that flu, or something very close to it, was transmitted to humans.