\nInfluenza, or the flu, is a type of virus that specifically targets our body\u2019s respiratory system.\n
The virus typically infects your lungs, throat, or nasal passages.\n
Because of the areas it infects, it\u2019s typically spread when someone with the flu sneezes, coughs, or talks.\n
You can also be infected if you touch a surface that has recently been in contact with the virus and then touch your eyes, nose, or mouth.\n
For example, if someone sneezes on a handrail and you touch it before scratching your eye, you could possibly catch the virus.\n
Like many others around the world, I too have at some point in time convinced myself that I am dying from the flu.\n
Just like the majority of these people, I was simply being melodramatic and recovered soon after.\n
While most people these days will recover from the flu without any serious trauma or risk of death, this is not always the case.\n
Let\u2019s take a look at one of these more deadly varieties, the Spanish Flu.\n
\n
Forget the flu you caught when you were a kid that you thought would be the end of both you, and the human race.\n
The worst flu on record is the Spanish Flu, which struck the world from 1918-1919.\n
The official worldwide death toll of the Spanish Flu was somewhere between 20 to 50 million people, although this is possibly a severe under-calculation.\n
It\u2019s suspected that the real numbers were somewhere around 100 million, with the extra numbers coming from regions that didn\u2019t keep medical records of the cases.\n
If the inflated numbers are to be believed, then more than 3% of the world’s population died from the Spanish Flu!\n
\n
The Spanish Flu struck in the early months of 1918, in the final year of World War I.\n
Spain was neutral in the war though, so their media was free to report on whatever they wished.\n
The irony here? Spanish media called it the French Flu!\n
This second wave is said to have been much more deadly, possibly due to mutations in the virus.\n
The third wave began in Australia in January 1919, and although it is considered to have been just as deadly a form as the second wave, it didn\u2019t spread as far as the war had already ended.\n
When the second wave of the Spanish Flu struck the US, it struck hard and fast.\n
The Spanish Flu, on the other hand, killed nearly twice this amount.\n
Around 15,000 soldiers lost their lives to the flu while stationed in France, with another 30,000 soldiers killed by the flu while on US soil.\n
One suspected cure-all was aspirin, a relatively new drug at the time.\n
Aspirin is of course still used today, although never in doses more than 4 grams a day.\n
The common forms of influenza aren\u2019t typically fatal.\n
The Spanish Flu was different, though.\n
While this is highly unusual, so was the Spanish Flu.\n
Scientists have managed to study the genetics of the virus from samples taken from the bodies of infected individuals that were frozen for decades in the permafrost of Alaska.\n
As the world becomes more and more overpopulated, so does the risk of a pandemic.\n
It\u2019s important for us to remember the lessons taught by this pandemic, as we\u2019re going to start to see more and more of them, even after COVID-19.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n