The specter of the 1918 Spanish flu—which may have started in the United States, not Spain, and killed about 20 million to 50 million people worldwide—has prompted public-health authorities to predict that we are unprepared to deal with a pandemic based on a highly pathogenic new strain of the H5N1 avian flu. The strain first appeared on poultry farms in China in 1996. As of December 2005, it had infected more than 130 people, killed more than 65, and spread—in birds—as far as Eastern Europe.
WHICH FLU WHEN
1918 • H1N1 A virulent strain emerges during World War I and sweeps the globe, claiming up to 50 million lives. A weakened version still circulates.
