Spanish Flu Pandemic

On the 12th of April, 2009, a Mexican woman died of severe viral pneumonia in the state of San Luis Potosi.  An epidemiologist, in this area of central Mexico, wondered what had caused the thirty-nine-year-old's illness. 

After submitting tissue samples, he soon learned concerning news.  The woman had a previously undetected strain of swine influenza, now known as Influenza A / H1N1. (The link explains the meaning of "H" and "N.") 

By the third week in April, more than 854 people in Mexico City had similar symptoms - 59 (and counting) had died.  In San Luis Potosi, where the original case was reported, 23 more people were ill - two more had died.  In Mexicali, near the U.S. border, four people were ill - none had died. 

Dr. Jose A. Cordova Villalobos, Mexico's Secretary of Health, reported a total of 1,614 cases by the 26th of April - with 103 deaths and 400 hospitalizations.  

Seemingly unrelated, at least initially, two children in California were also ill with flu-like symptoms.  Then people in Kansas (where the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic reportedly originated), Texas, Ohio and New York City got sick.  Of those twenty known cases, all had Swine Influenza A/H1N1 (as reported by the Centers for Disease Control).  Two people were hospitalized; none died.

Most of the impacted individuals (this is a live map, of reported cases, from Google Earth) were young adults (between the ages of 25-45), and in previously good health.  That fact has caused World-Health-Organization officials to become very concerned:

Because there are human cases associated with an animal influenza virus [H1N1 combines genes from swine, bird and human influenza viruses], and because of the geographical spread of multiple community outbreaks, plus the somewhat unusual age groups affected, these events are of high concern.  (World Health Organization Report, 24 April 2009.)

In discussing the early cases in California, the Centers for Disease Control also noted:

...concern exists that this new strain of swine influenza A (H1N1) is substantially different from human influenza A (H1N1) viruses, that a large proportion of the population might be susceptible to infection, and that the seasonal influenza vaccine H1N1 strain might not provide protection. The lack of known exposure to pigs in the two cases increases the possibility that human-to-human transmission of this new influenza virus has occurred.

The worry, of health officials, is that the new strain of Swine Influenza A (H1N1) has the potential to become pandemic.  Given what happened with the Spanish Flu disaster of 1918-19 (caused, lead researchers originally believed, by a swine-flu virus), national and worldwide health authorities are analyzing the H1N1 virus and carefully monitoring its progress. 

One can only hope that today's technologies, unavailable to scientists ninety years ago (when roughly one-third of the world's population "got the flu"), will help to unlock the new strain's mysteries and reveal the best possible defenses to combat it. 

NOTE:

Numerous pictures linked in this story are maintained at the U.S. National Museum of Health and Medicine - Otis Historical Archives.