Mystery of the 1918 "Spanish Flu" Pandemic: Solved!

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/solving-the-mystery-of-the-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic.html


MIT researchers have explained why two mutations in the H1N1 avian flu  
virus were critical for viral transmission in humans during the 1918  
pandemic outbreak that killed at least 50 million people -believed  
more than that taken by the Black Death, and higher than the number  
killed in World War I.

The 1918 flu pandemic -commonly known as the Spanish flu- was an  
influenza pandemic that started in the United States, appeared in West  
Africa and France and then spread to nearly every part of the globe in  
three waves lasting from March 1918 to June 1920, spreading to the  
Arctic and remote Pacific islands. It was caused by an unusually  
severe and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. In  
contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect  
juvenile, elderly, or otherwise weakened patients, the Spanish Flu  
also claimed healthy young adults, resulting from infection rates of  
up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be  
caused by cytokine storms.

The disease was first discovered at Fort Riley, Kansasand Queens, New  
York , in 1918. In August 1918, a more virulent strain appeared  
simultaneously in Brest, France, in West Africa at Freetown, Sierra  
Leone, and in the U.S. at Boston, Massachusetts. The Allies of World  
War I came to call it the Spanish Flu, primarily because the pandemic  
received greater press attention after it moved from France to Spain  
in November of 1918.

The MIT team showed that the 1918 influenza strain developed two  
mutations in a surface molecule called hemagglutinin (HA), which  
allowed it to bind tightly to receptors in the human upper respiratory  
tract.



snip


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