The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Why Today is Not 1918

In: World medical & health policy, Volume 1, Issue 1, p. 71-84

Abstract

AbstractThe specter of the 1918‐1919 influenza pandemic, which killed an estimated 40‐100 million people worldwide, hangs over analyses of and responses to the current pandemic of swine‐origin novel influenza A (H1N1). There are four major differences between today and 1918 that reduce the likelihood that the current pandemic—or the next one—will be as deadly as the one in 1918. Today we have advance warning of the threat of a highly lethal influenza pandemic, we have a global human health surveillance and response system, we have new medical countermeasures, and there is no global conflict like World War I to act as an incubator and vector for a highly lethal influenza virus and an impediment to medical and public health responses to the pandemic.