With no vaccine to protect against influenza infection and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections that can be associated with influenza infections, control efforts worldwide were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene, use of disinfectants, and limitations of public gatherings, which were applied unevenly. The H1N1 flu virus caused the deadliest pandemic of the 20th century. To better understand this deadly virus, an expert group of researchers and virus hunters set out to search for the lost virus, sequence its genome, recreate the virus in a highly safe and regulated laboratory setting at CDC, and ultimately study its secrets to better prepare for future pandemics.
Skip directly to site content Skip directly to page options Skip directly to A-Z link. Influenza Flu. Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. Minus Related Pages. What's this? Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
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Medical professionals advised patients to take up to 30 grams per day, a dose now known to be toxic. The flu took a heavy human toll, wiping out entire families and leaving countless widows and orphans in its wake. Funeral parlors were overwhelmed and bodies piled up. Many people had to dig graves for their own family members. The flu was also detrimental to the economy. In the United States, businesses were forced to shut down because so many employees were sick.
Basic services such as mail delivery and garbage collection were hindered due to flu-stricken workers. Even state and local health departments closed for business, hampering efforts to chronicle the spread of the flu and provide the public with answers about it. A devastating second wave of the Spanish Flu hit American shores in the summer of , as returning soldiers infected with the disease spread it to the general population—especially in densely-crowded cities.
Without a vaccine or approved treatment plan, it fell to local mayors and healthy officials to improvise plans to safeguard the safety of their citizens. So on September 28, the city went forward with a Liberty Loan parade attended by tens of thousands of Philadelphians, spreading the disease like wildfire.
In just 10 days, over 1, Philadelphians were dead, with another , sick. Only then did the city close saloons and theaters.
By March , over 15, citizens of Philadelphia had lost their lives. Louis, Missouri, was different: Schools and movie theaters closed and public gatherings were banned.
Consequently, the peak mortality rate in St. By the summer of , the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity.
Since , there have been several other influenza pandemics, although none as deadly. A flu pandemic from to killed around 2 million people worldwide, including some 70, people in the United States, and a pandemic from to killed approximately 1 million people, including some 34, Americans. The novel coronavirus pandemic of is spreading around the world as countries race to find a cure for COVID and citizens shelter in place in an attempt to avoid spreading the disease, which is particularly deadly because many carriers are asymptomatic for days before realizing they are infected.
Clinical Infectious Diseases. The flu afflicted over 25 percent of the U. In one year, the average life expectancy in the United States dropped by 12 years. It is an oddity of history that the influenza epidemic of has been overlooked in the teaching of American history.
Documentation of the disease is ample, as shown in the records selected from the holdings of the National Archives regional archives. Exhibiting these documents helps the epidemic take its rightful place as a major disaster in world history. Regional History from the National Archives.
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