We Need to Continue to Learn from Historical Flu Outbreaks

Since at least 1580, the influenza virus has spread among humans. Since 1945, we’ve been able to prevent it.

Emergency hospital during influenza outbreak, Camp Funston, Kansas, circa 1918. Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine. Public domain. Source

The flu started as a zoonotic disease — a virus that jumped from animals to humans, probably due to domestication of birds and pigs. At some point, the virus evolved for human to human transmission. What does its history in humans say about its, and our, future?

Origins of Influenza

The first references to a flu-like respiratory illness among humans date back to Hippocrates, a Greek physician in the first century BCE and the namesake of the Hippocratic oath. The term influenza dates to an epidemic in 1357 in Florence, Italy, “influenza di freddo”, the cold influence. It became a periodic (i.e. seasonal) malady that they thought followed the stars.

Human Flu Pandemics

The first human pandemic of influenza spread from Asia to Africa to Europe and finally to the New World starting in the summer of 1580, killing 8000 people in Rome alone.

18th Century Influenza Pandemics

In 1729, a flu pandemic started in Russia and within 6 months had spread throughout Europe. It ravaged…