The 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Paul Selleck A C and Ross Barnard B DA CSIRO Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, Private Bag 24, Geelong, Vic., 3220, Australia
B School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre, and ARC Training Centre for Biopharmaceutical Innovation, The University of Queensland Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia
C Tel.: +61 3 5227 5000 Fax.: +61 3 5227 5555 Email: Paul.Selleck@csiro.au
D Tel.: +61 4 1049 4472 Fax: +61 7 3365 4299 Email: rossbarnard@uq.edu.au
Microbiology Australia 41(4) 177-182 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA20049
Published: 7 October 2020
Abstract
Towards the end of world war one, the world faced a pandemic, caused not by smallpox or bubonic plague, but by an influenza A virus. The 1918–19 influenza pandemic was possibly the worst single natural disaster of all time, infecting an estimated 500 million people, or one third of the world population and killing between 20 and 100 million people in just over one year. The impact of the virus may have influenced the outcome of the first world war and killed more people than the war itself. The pandemic resulted in global economic disruption. It was a stimulus to establishment of local vaccine production in Australia. Those cities that removed public health restrictions too early experienced a second wave of infections. Unfortunately, it seems that the lessons of infection control and epidemic preparedness must be relearnt in every generation and for each new epidemic.
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