I ask because I read that a virologist had recntly exhumed some human remains (the bodiesof Inuit people who died during the 1919 epidemic), from graves in the frozen permafrost. The researchers were attaempting to identify the strain of the virus that killed these people. Could such activities inadvertently allow the virus to break out again? Everybody who had developed immunity to the 1919 virus strain is now dead (mostly), so could the virus re-infect people again? Do viruses survive freezing for 83 years? Many years ago, I remeber reading that a bacteriologist at san Jose State, had revived the spores of ancient bacteria, found in amber over 10 million years old-could diseases from the past (to which we have no immunity) devastate the human population?:eek:
Yes. Assuming it was actually influenza.
But there really is no proof, because we don’t have the organism.
For all we know, it might not even have been a virus.
As near as I can tell, we call it the Spanish Influenza, because that’s what they called it at the time.
Untrue. The type of influenza virus prevalent in the 1919 epidemic is discussed in this link.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=132398
You might check the GQ thread, “Could We Have Another 1919-Type Flu Epidemic?” started 26 July 02 and killed 6 hours later: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=127634&highlight=influenza+AND+epidemic
Indeed it is as QtM says that all or mostly all shall be answered in the linked thread. In case the answer to this OP is not apparent from that thread the answer is no, but yes. The virus that caused the Spanish Flu is extinct, so the exact same pandemic wouldn’t be possible.
Varieties of the virus it mutated from could mutate again and we would get something similar. It’s still unlikely that we would see another pandemic of the proportion of 1918/19. First of all the massive human close quarter congregation that was the trenches of the Marne in 1918 was instrumental in spreading the flu virus from the US to Europe and Asia.
Moreover we are more aware of viral epidemiological dynamics and we have antiviral medicine and inoculation techniques that were not in existence in 1918. All that being said; knowing how weird virus behave it’s not altogether impossible, but the virus would have to behave somewhat differently. Remember that the flu strikes a very large segment of the population every year.
Sparc
Doesn’t the flu already kill a lot of people, who are already weak-the elderly, small children, etc?
The flu generally tends to be a minor annoyance for otherwise healthy people, guin. Thins the herd a bit, to put it callously. But the 1919 flu devastated an otherwise healthy population. We don’t really fully understand why.
As QtM says the death rates in influenza are pretty low. that holds true even for the very young and the elderly. The risk for complication from pneumonia has to be compounded into the figure. With this you arrive at average death rates of about 12 individuals per 100 000 for the US. In the most exposed age group (over 85) the death rate is slightly over 1 000 per 100 000, but it drops off sharply already in 75-85 years of age where it is around 250. In the age groups below 55 the death rates quickly gets closer to zero, for new born infants the death rate is around 30 per 100 000 individuals, but already over 1 year of age the figure is almost zero. For more complete figures check distastercenter.com
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992717
Is a link worth checking out.
The 1919 virus (and yes indeed there is no question that it was a virus) should not cause the same kind of devastation because we are now familiar with it. The virulence of the 1919 strain of flu was due to an antigenic shift from swine. This is now a familiar strain (H1N1), so we have small outbreaks but really we don’t have too much of a problem with it.
To understand this here’s a little virology 101:
There are two ways that the flu virus (orthomyxovirus) changes: antigenic drift, and antigenic shift.
Antigenic drift are the subtle mutations that the virus goes through pretty much annually that cause the protein coat to change, thus requiring that we re-acquire immunity annually
Antigenic shift are the causes of pandemics. The virus contains 8 discrete “packets” of genetic material. If one these happen to swap with one from the virus of an animal we get antigenic shift, which can result in an extremely virulent strain.
The shifts historically have occurred with avian and porcine flu which is why usually these strains usually originate in a population which lives closely with livestock. The Spanish flu was due to an H1 antigenic shift of a swine virus.
An antigenic shift is the reason that Hong Kong killed all of the chickens in 1997. An avian shift occurred, and there was a possibility that the chicken population carried the shifted virus.
So back to the question:
Once the shift occurs, it is no longer unfamiliar. So despite the fact that the H1N1 strain is still around, it has lost it’s virulence, because it’s become incorporated into the “norms” of virus.
I know this probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense without better context so here are a couple of really good sites:
http://www.colorado.edu/Outreach/BSI/k12activities/interactive/actidfluframes.html
http://webs.wichita.edu/mschneegurt/biol103/lecture14/lecture14.html