The 1918 Flu Pandemic Started as a 'Bird Flu'

[expatinscotland]

Scientists at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, have been able to recreate and analyse this strain of flu, which killed some 50m people, using a tissue sample from the lungs of a man who died from this virus.

They have been working furiously on this in order to better understand the threat the current avian flu, H5N1, poses to the human population.

1918 Flu came from birds

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this is worrying. My dad had flu during that nasty winter of about 7 years ago and it almost killed him. I am recovering from it at the moment and have been sick for 2 full weeks and can't remember when I felt so bad. Do you think people should have the flu jab as a matter of course ? my dad does now.

no!

But it's ok. Apparently the Russians accidentally released a weakened form of this flu, a few years back, so at least we're safe from the 1918 flu, as we're all immune now.

Weird stuff.

(All our viral/bacterial illnesses start out as either variations on existing human diseases, or more often as adapted animal viruses/bacteria.)

Not this one, NQC. Not at all. This one was able to enter the human population entirely as an avian virus. It never needed to combine w/a human strain of influenza in order to become transmittable among humans. It is believed this was behind its high mortality rate.

Whether or not H5N1 does the same thing remains to be seen, but it's now been shown that an influenze virus CAN move into the human population as a virus that belongs entirely to another species.

When that happens, the result ain't good.

I have a flu jab every year as well. The last time I got flu I wound up w/double pnuemonia. 'Like a bad cold, ill for a week' my ARSE!

really?

Acchoooo

Yes, really. Click on the link and read away. This is not made-up sensationalism, this is the result of research by some of the top scientists on the planet, who have come together for research.

Um, it's a bird flu that adapted for humans, as it says in the article. Most new diseases are animal diseases that adapt for humans (HIV, hantavirus, lyme disease). Most old diseases are animal diseases that adapted for humans.

I hadn't known that normal flus were mixes.

It does annoy me when these articles sound like a viruses' goal in life is to become more virulent. Most viruses become milder over time, as killing off everying infected doesn't actually help a virus.

I am worried about the new bird flu, though.

Um, it never needed to combine genetically w/a human strain of flu to become transmissable between humans, that's what was so alarming about the research. Most times, a flu virus endemic to a particular species needs to combine w/a human strain in order to become transmissable between humans. The 1918 flu did not. Similarly, the present virus can infect humans. But it's not - yet and hopefully never will be - had a chance to mix w/a human strain, so so far as anyone knows it is not possible to contract it from another human being.#

This, however, may change. Or not.

Why do the birds get the flu?

The influenza virus is endemic in birds. And when it's not a new virus, it often doesn't even make them ill. That's actually the ideal state for a virus, existing in lots of creatures, who stay healthy and pass the virus around.

The new viruses (which kill birds, and sometimes us) are often created by mixes of bird and pig flu. And in some parts of China, birds and pigs are raised together, or close enough to pass bugs back and forth ...

Yes thats what I don´t like about the entire situation - crap living environments that breed disease means we all have to get a shot in the arm to protect ourselves. Viruses breeding super viruses.

Why the feck cannot humans get to grips with living in a sanity, healthy ecological manner? While perhaps not eliminating, would circumnavatigate many environmental and health problems.

It didn't come from Mars then, or a passing comet? Phew, that's a relief

They way we breed and keep animals for slaughter is central to the issue too.

In some parts of the world, people also live in very close proximity to their animals.

It's a tough nut to crack, at any rate.

Don't see what living in a city like London has to do with it all, at any rate. Especially considering that the subject scientists used to culture the 1918 virus was found buried in the Alaskan permafrost. I can only imagine how remote, wild and scarcely populated that area was in 1918/19. Yet the virus still managed to claim victims there. My gran's first husband and child also succumbed to the disease, in a tiny, remote village Eastern Mexico.

In places wheer people live in close proximity to their animals they've always done so and have a natural immunity.

In the west animals are stuffed full of antibotics and anti virals (which encourage further mutation) in massively inhumane conditions which facilitate the endemic problems of disease we see. They then eat them. It isn't hard to see where this leads.

Considering that many of the scientists working on this research are not American, yes, it's a mad idea to criticise the valuable research that's going on at the Centers for Disease and Infection Control.

They only did this b/c they had a hunch that the 1918 flu strain had something in common w/the H5N1. Further research is vital.

Flu doesn't normally kill healthy adult males in their 20s. H5N1 does. So did the 1918 one.

We then eat them, I mean

Has this research been peer reviewed?

This research has been published in two magazines. It was a collaboration between two teams of researchers and involved a WHO team as well. Interestingly, it may be that an MNetter's husband is also involved in the research!

Invitations are being issued to scientists from across the world to attend a conference on the research next month, and to hopefully come up w/a plan of action for further research.

Nearly all those infected w/H5N1 were from remote areas of Central East Asia - small villages and the like.