Three Scary Killer Flu Pandemics That Raged Fiercely Over the World

Pandemic flu is a deadly and contagious flu strain. The flu pandemic usually emerges every few decades, and none of us can even predict its outbreak and how bad it could be. Medical professionals, researchers as well as the scientists are issuing their concerns and alarms. The flu pandemic is a new flu virus which is coming on its way. It’s inevitable. It may strike human tomorrow, next year or many years from now. No one could tell you exactly WHEN it’s coming.

Image source

Pandemic flu is not similar to seasonal flu as it could potentially kill many lives and may even make many feeling very sick worldwide. In the worst-case scenario, many lives have been taken, hospitalized and some may have been treated as outpatients.

The flu viruses undergo a big change every few decades via a process called antigenic drift which results in a completely new flu strain. The predominant strain called A (H3N2) Fujian is slightly different from the A (H3N2) Panama that emerged in 2000-2001. Since there’re over hundreds of possible strains of flu virus, and thus getting the flu once doesn’t guarantee you from not getting it again. This is because the human immune system has no pre-existing immunity towards a newly created flu strain. Due to this reason, the virus can make people who are contacted with pandemic influenza feeling sick or may experience more serious disease.

Image source

When influenza viruses from different species infect poultry, two (or more) influenza viruses can undergo “genetic reassortment” (a process in which influenza viruses exchange genes during replication) to emerge as a new virus that is a mixture of two or more species of influenza viruses. These viruses were the basis for the outbreak of the human flu pandemics in 1957 (the “Asian” flu which caused about 2 million deaths) and 1968 (the “Hong Kong” flu which caused about 1 million deaths), which were a result of reassortment viruses with genes from both avian and human influenza viruses.  These pandemic viruses were responsible for tens of thousands of human deaths and million cases of human illnesses.

Image source

Replication of avian influenza viruses in poultry of course, give these viruses a platform to adapt to and be able to infect mammals, and subsequently be transmitted to humans. By treating poultry as their hosts, over the time, the flu viruses that replicated via “genetic reassortment” can have a vast of different variation. For instance, H1N1, H1N2, H3N2, H3N1 are some of the main influenza type A virus that have been reported to infect pig populations, while H1N1, H1N2, H2N2 and H3N2 have consistently circulated among humans. Some people with these influenza viruses have reported lethargy, coughing, lack of appetite, sore throat, eye redness or inflammation, depression, breathing difficulties, vomiting, diarrhea, runny nose, or/ and fever. Some with flu only feel terrible for 5-7 days before recovering completely. Nevertheless, young children, elderly and those with chronic diseases or respiratory problems may have greater health risk that may lead them to be hospitalized or even death. Worst still, some may have developed life-threatening complications, including heart failure, respiratory failure or pneumonia.

Spanish Flu (1918-19)

Image source

Spanish flu (Spanish influenza, La Grippe or 1918 flu pandemic) is the worst pandemic in human history that was reported to kill 20-100 million lives worldwide. It killed as many as 25 million lives in its first 25 weeks and 50 million lives in just a few months. It’s been regarded as one of the most devastating infections that caused a huge death toll worldwide and half a million deaths in the United States alone.

Image source

Spanish flu is by far regarded as an exceptionally severe and scary global pandemic since its death rates were higher than any other influenza pandemic to date. The deaths that were caused by 1918 flu pandemic were even greater than the deaths in World War I. In the Journal of the American Medical Association (12/28/1918), it was written:

“The 1918 has gone: a year momentous as the termination of the cruelest war in the annals of the human race; a year which marked the end at least for a time, of man’s destruction of man; unfortunately a year in which developed a most fatal infectious disease causing the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of all–infectious disease,”

The 1918 flu pandemic attacked to as far as the Arctic and remote Pacific islands and lasted from March 1918 to June 1920. The culprit of this pandemic was a deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. This virus can amazingly struck victim in a tremendous manner, which is almost within few hours of the first signs of infection.

Image source

In The Plague of The Spanish Lady:  The Influenza Pandemic of  1918-1919 by Richard Collier, published in 1974, it was written:

“It began, undramatically, after a two-day incubation period, with a cough. Next there was pain–behind the eyes, in the ears, in the lumbar region. Soon a drowsy numbness invaded the body, and fervor set in; often the temperature soared to 104 degrees F.  The pulse was thready and unstable; the victim’s tongue was thickly coated…every mortal fiber ached indescribably–the throat, the head, the naso-pharynx..”

Avian Influenza Virus

Image source

Avian influenza virus was first confined to Southeast Asia, and it’s seemed as an inevitable flu pandemic. The highly pathogenic H151 avian influenza flu re-occurred in Asia in 2003 and later it raged frantically to over 50 countries. This virus is scary as it could mutate and spread across the world, threatening to turn into a human flu pandemic. 

Image source   Image source

The bird flu virus can spread very fast, making the infected person very sick and in worst cases, it may take away some innocent lives. Its strain of A (H5N2) has been detected in species like wild birds, cats, chickens and pigs. The effect of H5N1 on poultry earned a title of “Chicken Ebola” which was also proved to be deadly when the H5N1 strain first infected populations in Hong Kong in 1997. In December 1997, all infected geese, chickens and ducks were killed in Hong Kong to reduce their potential threat to humans. Again, this virus caused severe outbreaks in poultry in the mid-2003. In December 2003, humans were identified to be infected by sick birds. Since then, the bird flu cases had been recorded in Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and other Asian countries with the most cases occurred in previously healthy children and young adults. Many people died in 2005, when another bird flu pandemic raged furiously across the infected regions.

Swine Flu

Image source

Swine flu (also called swine influenza, influenza A (H1N1), flu ) is a respiratory disease among the pig populations caused by A influenza virus, in which its outbreak normally occurs in the colder weather months (late fall and winter). In 1930 in the United States, an influenza type A H1N1 virus has been known to circulate among pigs. The current swine flu H3N2 viruses are closely associated with human H3N2 viruses.

Image source

Humans catch swine flu when they’ve a direct contact/ direct exposure to the infected pigs or those who’re close proximity to infected pigs such as in slaughterhouses, swine production barns, and livestock exhibits at fairs. More specifically, this virus can be directly transmitted from pigs to humans as “zoonotic” disease agents, and vice versa, from humans to pigs. Human-to-human transmission of swine flu occurs via sneezing or coughing of people infected with this virus; and people may also get infected by simply touching their mouth or nose or contacting with anything with flu viruses on it.

The well known outbreak of swine flu was first reported among soldiers in Fort Dix, New Jersey in 1976. This virus caused at least 4 soldiers with x-ray evidence of pneumonia and one death. In 1988 in Wisconsin, the apparent swine flu infection in pigs was reported to cause multiple human infections. In the same year of September, one 32-year-old pregnant woman was diagnosed to be infected with a swine H1N1 flu virus, and she died 8 days later after hospitalization for pneumonia. She was said to visit a county fair swine exhibition where there was widespread influenza-like illness among the swine. CDC stated that one human swine influenza virus infection is reported every one to two years  in the United States, and 12 cases of human infection with swine influenza have been reported from December 2005 through February 2009.

Final Remark

The threat of pandemic flu is unimaginable and it could affect anyone of your family member, friends, relatives or any individuals from other parts of the world. It’s not only a government effort, but it’s a personal effort to take appropriate precautionary steps to fight against this deadly flu virus. Therefore, everyone needs to participate in preparedness planning. If we’re badly prepared, the threat will be much larger.

Now, you can gain more health knowledge by visiting my health blog entitled HealthAssist. More upcoming updates and latest health information are right on the way!