Influenza WardWIKIMEDIA COMMONS, US ARMY
The “Spanish” influenza was circulating in the population months before it peaked in the fall of 1918, according to a study published today (September 19) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The earlier cases could help reveal the flu’s geographic origin and how it evolved to be so infectious.
“They’ve done a really outstanding piece of work,” said Robert Webster, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, who was not involved in the study. “This virus became extremely pathogenic in young men at about the time of the end of World War I,” and in order to do so it had to evolve to be more transmissible. “This paper shows how some of the changes occurred,” he added.
The 1918 influenza, ...
