1918 -- atypical pneumonia "fast and deadly" spreading in South East Asia

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

There is a danger that bears worrying about. We have ~ 300,000 troops in the
Iraq area most likely clustered together. If that new bug is at all
contagious, it could cause a major decrease in our capabilities and maybe
major loses.

No matter what you may think of the Iraq situation, it is worrisome that
history could repeat itself .

The sooner we find out what the illness is caused by , the better we will
all be.

Dave


------ Forwarded Message
From: chodge5 () utk edu
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 20:15:41 -0500 (EST)
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] : atypical pneumonia "fast and deadly" spreading in South
East Asia


Some boilerplate on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic from
http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/influenza.htm:

Initially the outbreak, which began in the Middle East in the spring of
1918 before reaching the Western Front shortly afterwards, took on a mild
form. However by the summer up to a third of influenza sufferers reported
increasingly harsh symptoms, including bronchial pneumonia, heliotrope
cyanosis and septicemic blood poisoning. A sizeable number died of their
symptoms.

The pandemic inevitably had military consequences although a far higher
number of civilian casualties were suffered. The virus swept across
German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish battle lines prior to reaching
France, thereby crucially inflicting casualties through sickness at a time
when Germany and her allies could ill-afford such losses. Quantifying the
effects of such losses at a time of increasing Allied successes on the
battlefield is however problematic.

By the autumn the virus had spread across the Atlantic to the U.S.A. via
military ships. Often the symptoms of a brief fever of short duration was
followed abruptly by death. So quickly did the strain overwhelm the body's
natural defences that the usual cause of death in influenza patients - a
secondary infection of lethal pneumonia - was often not present. Instead,
the virus caused an uncontrollable haemorrhaging that filled the lungs,
and patients would drown in their own body fluids.


------ End of Forwarded Message

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