Where to Avoid The Swine Flu Pandemic

Swine Flu has had a fairly predictable side effect on society – it has given rise to a welter of TV programmes focussing on the 1918 pandemic of Spanish Flu. That particular outbreak was vicious, massacring in 18 months as many people as have fallen victim to AIDS in 25 years.

All efforts to contain the spread of Spanish Flu were futile. Restrictions were placed on travel, the infected were isolated, hands were vigorously scrubbed and bodies disposed of before they were even cold, but to no avail. Is this where Camus got his inspiration for his allegorical novel “La Peste”? Who knows. However with all possible precautions in place the noxious organism got everywhere; soldiers returning from war in crowded trains and ships provided an excellent transport network for the spread of infection and nowhere was spared.

Or almost nowhere.

There is one centre of population that records no incidence of Spanish Flu throughout the entire period, and it remains a bit of a mystery why this particular locale escaped – Marajo. Marajo is a large, well-inhabited fluvial island sitting near the city of Belem in the mid stream of the Amazon River in Brazil. The equator cuts through it and it covers some 50,000 square kilometres. It’s not particularly remote, and in 1918 the rest of the country had suffered its share of victims so the infection had every chance of travelling to Marajo it would seem. But it didn’t. Geographical location, climate, preventative isolation, medicine, none of these seem to give a clue that might lead to an explanation of why Marajo seems to have been spared.

Stilt house on Marajo

It will be interesting to see how it fares with Swine Flu.