All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. As an answer, we received a message from a military doctor who informed us that there are only 17 cases but none of them present alarming symptoms. (2018) concluded that earlier estimates have been too high. To make sense of the fact life expectancy declined so abruptly, one has to understand what it measures. This last visualization here shows the life expectancy in England and Wales by age. Dr. José María Rodríguez, president of the High Council of Health told us yesterday that he has been receiving telegrams from Monterrey, Zacatecas, and Nuevo Laredo that report the “Spanish Flu” pandemic continues weakening for there are very few new cases. Gilbert, Marius, Giulia Pullano, Francesco Pinotti, Eugenio Valdano, Chiara Poletto, Pierre-Yves Boëlle, Eric D’Ortenzio, et al. Public resources were small and many countries had just spent large shares of their resources on the war. Margaret Pitt, then a pupil at Milton Mount College in Gravesend, recalled being offered something milder to drink: “The school was warned [of] the coming epidemic, so they tried to get us all home early before the Easter holidays. In Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 76(1), pp.105-115. “As a prevention measure and to stop the so-called “Spanish Flu” from propagating to other places in the country, the Ministry has ordered the closure of the Laredo Border Customs Office in Tamaulipas while the risk of infection prevails; once it disappears and the conditions of the place are positive, the reopening of the traffic will be opened in the mentioned office.”. This paper suggests that it was of the order of 50 million. Online here. Experts agree the Spanish flu occurred in multiple waves and that the second wave was significantly more deadly than the others. For the definitions of epidemic and pandemic see the CDC here. The visualization shows that in many countries life expectancy, which measures the average age of death, doubled from around 40 years or less to more than 80 years. 70% of the population is infected by the terrible disease and the first death has been of the local congressman Enrique Dávila. doi: 10.3201/eid2203.150977 PMCID: PMC4766886 PMID: 26886846 Online here. Online here. As with Spanish flu, no-one was exempt from the virus: the Prime Minister of the UK Boris Johnson was hospitalised with Covid-19 in April 2020 and the President of the United States of America, President Trump, suffered similarly in October. This means that in recent years the flu was responsible for the death of 0.0052% of the world population – one person out of 18,750.5 Even in comparison to the low estimate for the death count of the Spanish flu (17.4 million) this pandemic, more than a century ago, caused a death rate that was 182 -times higher than today’s baseline. In the last 150 years the world has seen an unprecedented improvement in health. But the Spanish flu reminds us just how large the impact of an pandemic can be, even in countries that had already been successful in improving population health. Proc. Smith F. B. (2019) – A year of terror and a century of reflection: perspectives on the great influenza pandemic of 1918–1919. When comparing COVID-19 with the Spanish flu, there are a number of important differences that should be considered: They are not the same disease and the virus causing these diseases are very different. Sci. Morens D. M., Taubenberger J. K., Fauci A. S. (2008) – Predominant role of bacterial pneumonia as a cause of death in pandemic influenza: implications for pandemic influenza preparedness. & Cinatl, J. Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, … It shows that life expectancy increased at all ages, which means that the often-heard assertion that life expectancy ‘only’ increased because child mortality declined is not true. But it is false to attribute a specific number of deaths to each wave. Online here. Patterson and Pyle (1991) estimated that between 24.7 and 39.3 million died from the pandemic.6, The widely cited study by Johnson and Mueller (2002) arrives at a much higher estimate of 50 million global deaths. After the director of the hospital knew about the situation, he ordered to have a pavilion ready for their arrival that will be exclusively destined for those affected with the mentioned disease and in which, as usual, there will be perfect antisepsis. American Journal of Epidemiology. Health authorities have noticed the danger that lingers upon the Republic, and to prevent its propagation, the Health Department has ordered the following measures. When the flu rampaged through Spain, the Spanish government publicly announced the epidemic. Nurses at work combating the influenza epidemic at the Red Cross in Seattle, 1918. U.S.A. 102 11059–11063. The virus that causes COVID-19 is a coronavirus, not an influenza virus that caused the Spanish flu and the other influenza pandemics listed above. 8 55–73. The “Spanish Flu” pandemic that was developing at an alarming pace in northeast Mexico has begun to decrease, according to reports obtained from authorized sources. However, it must be acknowledged that even this vast figure may be substantially lower than the real toll, perhaps as much as 100 percent understated.”. This is at odds with what we would expect: older populations tend to be most vulnerable to influenza outbreaks and respiratory infections. The early epidemics had mortality rates estimated at 40%. Our World in Data presents the data and research to make progress against the world’s largest problems. Is COVID-19 worse than the 1918 Spanish flu? Med. Gatherer (2009)13 published the estimate of 1.5 million, while Michaelis et al. Partly online on Google books. Patterson, K.D. The flu weakens all over the countryOctober 14, 1918. There is now a lot of variability in these estimates and while the academic discussions continue the range of estimates gives us an understanding of the severity of the event. The news we have about the affectations the “Spanish Flu” is causing, both abroad and in our country, will surely make our people to be prepared for the terrible blow, supporting the actions of the Department. License: All of Our World in Data is completely open access and all work is licensed under the Creative Commons BY license. Temples, schools, theaters, and other places were people can gather have been closed. (1995) – The Russian influenza in the United Kingdom, 1889-1894. Mexico was not exempt from this health crisis that took thousands of lives. In other words, if we had precise annual counts they would likely show a decline of the world population in 1918. Soc. Meanwhile, in San Pedro, Coahuila, the disease has continued growing and there are days in which the victims ascend to 100. For this reason the Spanish flu has been cited as a warning and as a motivation to prepare well for large pandemic outbreaks, which have been considered likely by many researchers.23. Published in 2009 by the WHO. Also referred to as the Bombay Influenza or the Bombay Fever in India, the pandemic is believed to have killed up to 17 - 18 million people in the country, the most among all countries. He said the ship “Alfonso XII” arrived with 1,200 migrants on board, out of which 23 died due to the terrible disease and 300 were infected. The primary focus was on passengers entering from the US, The United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, France and New Zealand. The ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic is only present in Mexico with the characteristics of a disease previously known as the common cold and it does not have, as it has been said, alarming symptoms that could cause a true pandemic that could cause numerous victims in the Republic. Online here. Published in 2009 by the WHO. But it is true that the world today is much better connected. Spanish Flu was the most serious pandemic in history, with millions of deaths worldwide. J. Infect. An estimate from 1991 states that the virus killed between 25 and 39 million people. London: Macmillan. How large was the share who died in the pandemic? In Emerg Infect Dis. (1 December 2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-019-3750-8  according to Smith (1995) 132,000 in England, Wales, and Ireland alone. Although the actual origin of the disease was France and then it spread to Spain, it was the Iberic country that informed about the consequences of the pandemic that disseminated due to the mobilization of troops in WWI. Online here. 198 962–970. As a matter of fact, we had access to a message dated in Monterrey in which the governor Nicéforo Zambrano asserts that due to the measures implemented by his government, the epic has disappeared, according to opinions of local doctors. Med. Mr. José M. de la Garza, Municipal President of Mexico is seriously worried about the invasion of the Spanish Flu pandemic threatening Mexico City. (2005) suggests that the epidemic originated in New York due to evidence of a pre-pandemic wave of the virus in that city).1. To have a context for the severity of influenza pandemics it might be helpful to know the death count of a typical flu season. We will always indicate the original source of the data in our documentation, so you should always check the license of any such third-party data before use and redistribution. Yesterday, he gave orders for all hosing vehicles of the Public Works Service to work constantly so that, filled with a strong creolin solution, they hose the streets of this city at least twice a day. Med Microbiol Immunol 198, 175–183 (2009). The age-specific mortality seems to be very different. “Reassessing the Global Mortality Burden of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic”. Their own estimate is 17.4 million deaths.8. *While Mexico says it has reduced in the North, Monterrey says the disease is worsening. Hosing the streets Differences in health systems and infrastructure also matter. 10.1086/591708. Instead historians try to reconstruct the population figures for 5-year or 10-year intervals and the annual estimates are interpolations between these estimates. The sickness had a strong presence in the north of the country and the government implemented drastic measures, such as closing the borders and hosing the streets with creolin – a strong disinfectant – to avoid its propagation. History of 1918 Flu Pandemic. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited. Online here. From the paper: “Further research has seen the consistent upward revision of the estimated global mortality of the pandemic, which a 1920s calculation put in the vicinity of 21.5 million. Hist. Some villages escaped, but in some others every single inhabitant died. See also Alyssa S. Parpia, Martial L. Ndeffo-Mbah, Natasha S. Wenzel, and Alison P. Galvani (2016) – Effects of Response to 2014–2015 Ebola Outbreak on Deaths from Malaria, HIV/AIDS, and Tuberculosis, West Africa. 2016 Mar; 22(3): 433–441. This was not just an achievement across these countries; life expectancy has doubled in all regions of the world. Related Pages. With respect to the impact of the Spanish flu it is striking that the visualization shows that the pandemic had very little impact on older people. So has been declared by experts whose opinion was recently requested about the characteristics of the disease. Period life expectancy, which is the precise name for this measure, only looks at the mortality pattern in one particular year and then captures this snapshot of population health as the average age of death of a hypothetical cohort of people for which that year’s mortality pattern would remain constant throughout their entire lifetimes. The research literature suggests that this was the case because older people had lived through an earlier flu outbreak – the already discussed ‘Russian flu pandemic’ of 1889–90 – which gave those who lived through it some immunity for the later outbreak of the Spanish flu.18, The earlier 1889-90 pandemic might have given the older population some immunity, but was a destructive event in itself. The pandemic at Havanna – Measures Against Infested Ships The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Published online 2013 Aug 5. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069586. Period life expectancy is a measure of the population’s health in one year. The Spanish flu, unusually for an influenza, was less lethal for older people, perhaps because a similar 1830s flu outbreak granted older people still alive in … These differences suggest that one should be cautious in drawing lessons from the outbreak a century ago. Yesterday, by orders of the Public Health Department, 40 persons infected by the flu were received in the General Hospital of this city. The Spanish Flu is losing groundWednesday, October 16, 1918, * Only in San Pedro, Coahuila the disease is increasing with up to 100 daily deaths PMID 30202996. The calculation is (17,400,000/1,832,196,157)*100=0.95. Smith F. B. Most striking is the large, sudden decline of life expectancy in 1918, caused by an unusually deadly influenza pandemic that became known as the ‘Spanish flu’. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30411-6. Further below I will briefly discuss similarities and differences with the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2019/20. Current estimates for the annual number of deaths from influenza are around 400,000 deaths per year. * Medications will be brought from the United States. (2002) – Updating the accounts: global mortality of the 1918-1920 “Spanish” influenza pandemic. And we say this because the so-called flu, which has had fatal results in Europe with victims year after year, is harmless in these regions where it is only a more or less intense cold. Roman Duda (2016) – Problem profile: Biorisk reduction. Spain was the first country struck by the flu that was not involved in World War I; thus, it was the first country not to censor their health reports. who died during the 1918-1920 Influenza pandemic. Paget et al (2019) suggest an “average of 389 000 (uncertainty range 294 000-518 000) respiratory deaths were associated with influenza globally each year”. Traffic between Monterrey and Torreón suspended And not just health systems were different, but also the health and living conditions of the global population. On Alaska also see here and on Samoa see here. BMC Infect Dis 19, 117 (2019). As you will surely remember, we reported it was known that in Juchitepec, Tenango del Aire in the State of Mexico, there had been some “Spanish Flu” cases registered and so we investigated the result of the test performed by the Department. Overall, the Spanish flu was present in England from June 1918 to April 1920 in three different waves, meaning it was in the country for just under two years. OUR DATA: We use the most recent data from these primary sources: WHO, World Bank, UNESCO, CIA and individual country databases for global health and causes of death. P. Spreeuwenberg; et al. Olson D. R., Simonsen L., Edelson P. J., Morse S. S. (2005). The Spanish flu led to record death tolls. 8 55–73. Our World In Data is a project of the Global Change Data Lab, a registered charity in England and Wales (Charity Number 1186433). A 1991 paper revised the mortality as being in the range 24.7-39.3 million. Online here. 2013; 8(8): e69586. It was patchy. One of the deadliest pandemics in human history was the one that took place in 1918 when the “Spanish Flu” spread and had a toll of 50 million deaths all over the world. deaths per 100,000 persons in each age group, United States, for the interpandemic years 1911–1917 (dashed line) and the pandemic year 1918 (solid line)[29] The disease killed in every corner of the globe. SALTILLO, Coah., October 9. The Spanish Flu pandemic weakensSaturday, August 12, 1918. Following the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 1918, which came to be known as the Spanish Flu, the number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia soared. The data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors. The appearance of the “Spanish Flu” in our country has acquired alarming characteristics for it is present in several places as a strong pandemic. The reason for this is that precise annual counts of the world population are not available for the past. The 1918 H1N1 flu virus caused the deadliest pandemic of the 20th century. Morens et al (2008) found that during the Spanish flu “the majority of deaths … likely resulted directly from secondary bacterial pneumonia caused by common upper respiratory–tract bacteria.”21. 8 55–73. Smith (1995) estimates that the Russian flu killed 132,000 in England, Wales, and Ireland. 10 Misconceptions About the 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’ In the pandemic of 1918, between 50 and 100 million people are thought to have died, … The new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 appears to be most lethal to the elderly, based on early evidence in China.20. The Spanish flu reached its height in autumn 1918 but raged until 1920, ... France's wartime trenches, ridden with filth, disease, and death, were originally seen as the flu… (2009) published a lower estimate of 1–2 million.16, The Russian Flu pandemic of 1977-78 was caused by the same H1N1 virus that caused the Spanish flu. Published online 2019 Oct 22. doi: 10.7189/jogh.09.020421 PMCID: PMC6815659 PMID: 31673337 Online here. (2009) published an estimate of 2–4 million.14, According to a WHO publication the “Hong Kong Flu” (1968-1969) killed between 1 and 4 million people.15, Michaelis et al. - The State government has ordered important measures to counteract the terrible “Spanish Flu” pandemic that is propagating in the State. Spanish Flu: the virus that changed the world; 10 facts about the Black Death; Why was Spanish Flu called Spanish flu? According to Michaelis et al. The pandemic in Coahuila state Subsequent outbreaks gradually became less catastrophic. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited. Michaelis, M., Doerr, H.W. In the same cablegram, he said there is evidence of the presence of cholera on the island. Today the sharing of data, research, and news is certainly not perfect, but very different and much more open than in the past. Gatherer D. (2009). As many as 17 million died in India, about 5% of the population. To better understand this deadly virus, an expert group of researchers and virus hunters set out to search for the lost 1918 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. Hist. More than 100 years before the coronavirus outbreak, the world was ravaged by the Spanish Flu pandemic, which infected an estimated one-third of the global population. During the Spanish flu from 1918 to 1919 around 50 million people were estimated to have died. Spanish Flu: Death Rates By Country. How do these estimates compare with the size of the world population at the time? Yesterday, we were given information by the Finance Ministry which we immediately published about the measures issued by the Customs General Direction to prevent the propagation of the pandemic that has started in northeast Mexico. Flu virus caused the deadliest pandemic of 1918–1919 countryOctober 14, 1918 early March it. Single inhabitant died of mortality estimates by world region and country COVID-19 ) in 2019/20 the!, there were 11 cases of death registered with no other event worth mentioning ; life in... And mortality of the pandemic did not end until two years later in late 1920 no other event mentioning... Improvement in health Registry, there were 11 cases of death registered with no other event worth mentioning make of. 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