Preparing to Survive the H5N1 Avian Flu Pandemic

THE 1918 BIRD INFLUENZA

Estimates on worldwide deaths from this catastrophe range all the way from 25 million to 100 million. Some experts believe it killed more people than the Black Death.  Estimated American deaths were 675,000, ten times as many as those killed in action in World War I. Of the American soldiers who died in Europe, roughly half perished from flu.   The US mortality rate was roughly 2.5%, but rates in some countries abroad were far higher: India’s was 5% with some 20% of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent.  Even at that “low” American rate, it was 25 times deadlier than ordinary flu. In America, Philadelphia was the hardest-hit city: out of a population of almost 2 million, almost 13,000 died—11,000 in October alone.  The death rate was especially high in indigenous peoples where some entire villages perished in Alaska and southern Africa. Fourteen percent of the population of the Fiji Islands died in a period of only two weeks while 22% of the population of Western Samoa died.

For those who think this was just a particularly nasty flu, think again.  Patients’ faces turned purple as they gasped for breath while their feet turned black. They died in a form of drowning as their lungs filled with fluid. They vomited and coughed up blood, which also poured uncontrollably from their noses and, in the case of women, from their genitals. The highest death toll occurred among pregnant women: as many as 71 percent of those infected died. In his publications, Dr. Osterholm notes that the 1918 flu was particularly lethal for persons aged 18-40.  Apparently, this was because those people had survived the childhood diseases and their bodies’ immune systems were strong. This means, paradoxically, that their bodies were forced into a fatal overdrive when attacked by a previously-unknown disease. This brand-new pathogen unleashes “a classic immunologic storm…a cytokine storm…” in 24 to 36 hours their lungs just become bloody rags.  In a cytokine storm, the autoimmune process runs wild, and the victim is, in effect, killed by his body’s immune responses. The immunologically fittest may be at a greater risk than the unfit.  These statistics are from a time when the world population was a third of what it is today.  It is not possible to predict what it would be like the next time.  Some of the worry about the current outbreaks is that the H5N1 virus is mutating in a way that mimics the 1918 virus did and the current mortality rate for the H5N1 is currently in excess of 50%.

Despite the advances of the modern age, if a serious new pandemic were to develop, we could be facing similar conditions to those depicted in the 1918 photos below.

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