Flu: The Story
of the Great Influenza
Pandemic of 1918
and the Search for
the Virus That Caused It
by Gina Kolata
Posted on 12/05/2007 1:04:14 AM PST by neverdem
Researchers in New York believe they have solved one of the great mysteries of the flu: Why does the infection spread primarily in the winter months?
The answer, they say, has to do with the virus itself. It is more stable and stays in the air longer when air is cold and dry, the exact conditions for much of the flu season.
“Influenza virus is more likely to be transmitted during winter on the way to the subway than in a warm room,” said Peter Palese, a flu researcher who is professor and chairman of the microbiology department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the lead author of the flu study.
Dr. Palese published details of his findings in the Oct. 19 issue of PLoS Pathogens. The crucial hint that allowed him to do his study came from a paper published in the aftermath of the 1918 flu pandemic, when doctors were puzzling over why and how the virus had spread so quickly and been so deadly.
As long as flu has been recognized, people have asked, Why winter? The very name, “influenza,” is an Italian word that some historians proposed, originated in the mid-18th century as influenza di freddo, or “influence of the cold.”
Flu season in northern latitudes is from November to March, the coldest months. In southern latitudes, it is from May until September. In the tropics, there is not much flu at all and no real flu season.
There was no shortage of hypotheses. Some said flu came in winter because people are indoors; and children are in school, crowded together, getting the flu and passing it on to their families.
Others proposed a diminished immune response because people make less vitamin D or melatonin when days are shorter. Others pointed to...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Flu would knock me out fast, I just play hermit this time of year.
Micro ping! PLoS, as in public library of science, are FReebies, the whole article, even if I only read the abstract.
The best part of the story: They actually used guinea pigs as, well, guinea pigs.
bmflr
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Flu: The Story
of the Great Influenza
Pandemic of 1918
and the Search for
the Virus That Caused It
by Gina Kolata
Do you stock up on groceries so you don’t have to venture out much? Just curious!
Got a chest freezer and I open some cans. I don’t hide, I just stay away from herds. I only have about 50% lung capacity, on a good day, and I want to see my grandson’s graduation.
God bless you. I’m pulling for you to hang in there to be able to enjoy your grandson!
My own grandfather almost died in that 1918 epidemic. He was 20 at the time.
More died from “the Spanish Lady” than died from WWI. Kolata’s book is interesting in that the peak year appears to have been just that, the peak; the couple of years or so before had killer flu seasons, as if building up to the really bad one, and the killer flu seasons which followed for a couple of years or so kinda tapered off. It’s an interesting book, in any case.
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