What is the Spanish flu?

Spanish flu was a terrible worldwide epidemic that killed between 50-100 million people at 18 months in 1918 and 1919. It classifies it as 5 on the pandemic index, which means that more than 2% of people died. The Spanish flu resulted in death 2.5-5% of the world's population at the time it hit, and killed more than the First World War that occurred immediately afterwards. The Spanish flu was in the same category of severity as the bubonic plague, which, when it hit as a black death, killed about 75 million people, of which 25-50 million in Europe. Unlike the most influenza outbreaks in history, the Spanish flu hit people in their first -class life, rather than discarding old and young. People with weaker immune systems, such as middle -aged children and adults, had lower mortality, while young adults had high -ranking mortality.

The distribution pattern of death has led scientists to claim,that the Spanish flu was killed because of an excessive immune response called a storm of cytokines. In the cytokin storm, the immune response is so stunning that excess immune cells, such as macrophages, can clog local tissues, causing the accumulation of fluids and ultimately fatal damage. Cytokine storms are usually rare and are assumed that they are caused as a reaction of the immune system to a new and highly pathogenic striker.

Compared to a more typical case of influenza, which kills 0.1% infected, the Spanish influenza killed between 2-20% of the suffering. The primary cause of death was secondary lung infection, bacterial pneumonia. The secondary cause of death was from the virus itself, which caused massive bleeding and swelling in the lungs.

The genetic material of the Spanish flu virus was obtained from the corpse of the influenza victim in the Alaskan Permafrost, a woman who stopped in the desert after the disease. This genetic material was used to restore the virus from zero and sequence of the entire genome that wasPublished on the Internet. Some technologists, such as the inventor of Ray Kurzweil and co -founder of Sun Microsystems Bill Joy, expressed in this development.