![]() ![]() Even President Woodrow Wilson reportedly contracted the flu in early 1919 while negotiating the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. What is known, however, is that few locations were immune to the 1918 flu-in America, victims ranged from residents of major cities to those of remote Alaskan communities. Navy was hit with the flu, while 36 percent of the Army became ill, and troops moving around the world in crowded ships and trains helped to spread the killer virus.Īlthough the death toll attributed to the Spanish flu is often estimated at 20 million to 50 million victims worldwide, other estimates run as high as 100 million victims-around 3 percent of the world’s population. The exact numbers are impossible to know due to a lack of medical record-keeping in many places. soldiers died from the 1918 flu than were killed in battle during the war. One unusual aspect of the 1918 flu was that it struck down many previously healthy, young people-a group normally resistant to this type of infectious illness-including a number of World War I servicemen. (Even Spain's king, Alfonso XIII, reportedly contracted the flu.) It’s unknown exactly where the particular strain of influenza that caused the pandemic came from however, the 1918 flu was first observed in Europe, America and areas of Asia before spreading to almost every other part of the planet within a matter of months.ĭespite the fact that the 1918 flu wasn’t isolated to one place, it became known around the world as the Spanish flu, as Spain was hit hard by the disease and was not subject to the wartime news blackouts that affected other European countries. In just one year, 1918, the average life expectancy in America plummeted by a dozen years. ![]() Victims died within hours or days of developing symptoms, their skin turning blue and their lungs filling with fluid that caused them to suffocate. However, a second, highly contagious wave of influenza appeared with a vengeance in the fall of that same year. The sick, who experienced such typical flu symptoms as chills, fever and fatigue, usually recovered after several days, and the number of reported deaths was low. The first wave of the 1918 pandemic occurred in the spring and was generally mild. A flu pandemic, such as the one in 1918, occurs when an especially virulent new influenza strain for which there’s little or no immunity appears and spreads quickly from person to person around the globe. ![]()
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