What Is the Asian Flu?

Asian influenza was an influenza that first broke out in China in 1957, and the disease subsequently spread throughout the world (including the United States) in the same year. The virus lasted until 1958. The second major pandemic of human flu is the "Asian Flu." The flu was named because it originated in Asia and should be called subtype A (H2N2) influenza. The virus first appeared in western Guizhou Province, China in February 1957 and swept the world in eight months. The morbidity is about 15% to 30%, and the mortality is not high.

Asian Flu

Asian flu is type A

From November 2004 to February 2005, a total of 3,700 1957 virus test kits were mistakenly sent from the American College of Pathologists (CAP) to the world. Most test kits containing the flu virus were not valued by the recipients, so the contents of a kit were leaked from a laboratory in Canada. The American College of Pathologists' mission was to help other laboratories identify unidentified virus samples, but one of its cooperating private laboratories mistakenly sent the 1957 virus as a new influenza A virus. The U.S. government views the 1957 viruses as lethal and calls on recipients to destroy them.