Flu Immune 500

The influenza virus known as the Spanish Flu that entered America in 1918 came by way of ill soldiers who had become stricken with the virus in Western Europe and who were sent home. They were highly contagious and the virus spread rapidly to all the surrounding communities. However, the greatest entrance of the virus came through the supply ships that travelled back and forth from America to Western Europe, and the first major wave of the epidemic occurred in Boston where the supply ships arrived.

The Spanish Flu originated in Tibet in 1917 and was spread across the continents by the armies of various nations. The flu virus was a combination of bird flu virus and swine flu virus, and was contagious between the pigs and humans. It began with the farmers in the overpopulated South China who farmed both pigs and chickens, and was spread rapidly beginning with their own soldiers.

It reached Europe almost instantly, and when it got to France the character of the disease changed. It was never given any great consideration until it hit Spain, and because they were a neutral country in WW1, they were able to focus on the effects that the flu was having on its people rather than on the war. And because they focussed on the virus, the name adapted to it was The Spanish Flu.

The flu would start off with symptoms of a simple flu but would worsen until it became deadly. The symptoms went from fevers to shivers, to coughs and muscular pain and sore throat, to tiredness and dizzy spells, to being weak to the point of incapacitation, to not being able to breath, and finally to death. It spread very quickly as it was highly contagious and gripped everyone in its path.

It has been estimated that during the fall of 1918-1919, about 675,000 Americans died from the Spanish flu, and of those victims almost 200,000 died in the month of October of 1918. United States was unexpectedly and severely struck with the Spanish flu leaving approximately 33,000 people dead in New York City alone. Globally, about 525 million people were infected with the virus, and well over 20 million people were reported to have died.

Very quickly, officials in the United States imposed precautions for everyone to wear gauze masks and protect themselves from the virus. The epidemic was contained and it ended as quickly as it began.

It has been reported that even President Woodrow Wilson contracted a mild dose of the flu when he was in Paris working on the Treaty of Versailles. Some people believe that he was so ill with the flu that it actually affected his input into the conditions of the treaty, an event that otherwise might have averted WW2.

The characteristic that stands out the most with the victims of the Spanish Flu is that it attached young, healthy people instead of the weak or the elderly. This added further chaos to communities as their leaders and organizers fell victim to the flu.

Studies of the Spanish Flu virus have allowed for great medical advances that should prevent such a pandemic disaster from happening in America again. We have vaccines and antiviral drugs that help to prevent the flu from coming forward. However, in areas like the Third World, India and an overpopulated China, health care has not yet been able to issue necessary vaccines to the people. This leaves a hole in the veil of precaution.

But the American health care system has taken the threat of flu seriously, and every American has the ability to receive a flu vaccination that will help prevent another flu epidemic from ever happening in America.