Improve Your General Knowledge About Spanish Influenza
In this post we are going to share general knowledge based facts on Spanish Influenza pandemic 1918. Spanish Flu affected the one third population of the world in the year 1918, 1919 and 1920. It was the deadliest pandemic in the known history. About 50 million people were killed with this pandemic in 3 years. About ten percent patients of Spanish influenza died. This pandemic started in Jan 1918 and ended in Dec 1920. Some doctors believe that about 100 million people died due to this pandemic. About 500 million people were affected with this fatal disease. Even healthy people were also died in this pandemic. The real cause of this Pandemic was H1N1 Influenza virus. Same H1n1 virus was the cause of swine flu in the year 2009.
General Knowledge about Spanish Flu 1918, Comparison with Coronavirus & Plague
It is said that origin of this virus was USA. Soldiers of USA army in WW1 took this virus with them in Europe. Trench warfare became the cause of its fast spread in Europe. Due to strict censorship during WW1 this pandemic was not reported in the world media except in Spain, which was neutral in this war. Spanish media out-broke the news about the spread of this fatal disease that’s why British media gave this pandemic the name of Spanish Flu. Large number of Spanish celebrities and even King of Spain became the victim of this disease. Soldiers of WW1 brought the virus in the native countries after the end of first world war.
This disease is also known as forgotten pandemic as world media had forgotten it, as no record and documentation is available about its spread. Even no serious research was conducted about its spread in the later years. This H1N1 virus mostly affected the young people from the age of 20 to 30. This pandemic arose in different waves. The second wave was most deadly in Summer season. In the first wave it affected the ill and old people while the healthy young people recovered easily. In the second wave of August it started killing the young people after mutation. Third phase arrived in the 1919, but most deadly time was September and October 1918. Main cause of deaths was Pneumonia and other respiratory diseases by Spanish Influenza. At that time Pneumonia was deadly as antibiotics were not discovered. Exact figure of deaths is not available due to this pandemic as generally people died due to Pneumonia and respiratory complications. Later it was discovered that these symptoms were also due to Spanish Flu. Secondary infections in H1NI patients used to kill them and doctors thought them to be the primary cause of the death. At that time there was no WHO and any other related world health body for collecting the data about exact affected people by this pandemic.
In many countries of the world including USA schools, churches and theaters were closed. Lockdowns were also common. Coughing and spitting at public places were made punishable. Ban was imposed on travelling. Temporary hospitals were set up in many general buildings and military bases.Mask manufacturing increases a lot.
Comparison Between Spanish Flu & Plague
Plague (Black Death) also killed the one third population of the world in the 13th century but at that time the population of the world was also very low. Spanish flu killed more people in one year than what the plague killed in one hundred years. It also killed more people in 24 weeks than HIV AIDS in 24 years. Remember that swine flue in 2009 killed just 2 lakh people. In WW1 4 million people were killed and Spanish Influenza killed 5 million people, so it was most deadly than world war 1. Roughly 5% of American people died due this pandemic. It decreased the life expectancy in USA from 51 years to 39 years.
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In subcontinent this pandemic was given the name of Bombay fever and it killed about 10 to 20 million people here. It means about 1/5th of total deaths due to Spanish flu were recorded in India. Indian soldiers brought this disease from Europe after the end of WW1 through Bombay port. In short Spanish Flu 1918 was much deadly than coronavirus pandemic 2020. Visit our general knowledge and health categories daily for reading more related articles.
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