The 1918 flu pandemic is considered the biggest pandemic in the history of humankind. This disease, which has claimed many people’s lives, also has the name Spaniard and H1N1 in science. H1N1 is the same virus as the usual seasonal flu, but younger people are exposed to the disease. In addition, H1N1 is a new type of influenza; accordingly, people have had little immunity to this virus. It was because the news about the pandemic began in Spain. This paper discusses the causes of the 1918 influenza pandemic, how humans contributed to its spread, and the responses to it.
The main reason for the global spread of the pandemic was the world war that was taking place at that time. The war is accompanied by a large number of people who physically interact closely with each other. People who died during the war remained unburied and it leads to releasing toxic substances from the dead organism. In addition, the dead bodies served as food for the animals and were eaten where the remains were scattered. Consequently, this phenomenon led to unsanitary conditions and the accumulation of microbes and bacteria, which served as a hotbed for a pandemic. When the military camps were very close to each other and there was a livestock nearby, there were no reasons or obstacles for the flu to arise and then spread rapidly. This phenomenon has provided a pandemic with favorable conditions for the emergence and rapid spread (Short et al., 2018). Since people were going through a war at that time, the cause of the epidemic may well be considered dead and rotting corpses of people. If there were fewer interactions, then there might not have been a pandemic, or there would have been significantly fewer victims (Short et al., 2018). Since the war was going on worldwide, corpses were everywhere, and there was no concrete hearth. Accordingly, a pandemic could occur in many places at the same time.
Usually, when seasonal flu occurs in a specific group of the population of a particular area, elderly and very young people are exposed to death. However, during the 1918 pandemic, adults also had a high mortality rate. The reason for this is, again, the immune system of humanity. In addition to everything, people fought and were far from favorable life conditions (Short et al., 2018). For this reason, their immune system is also in danger. The fatal mistake of humanity, which led to the global spread of the disease, was that the authorities kept confidential the already spreading pandemic. This decision was taken at the expense of the First World War going on at that time so that residents and armies would not start panicking and rebelling.
Many problems have accompanied humanity’s response to the horrific spread of the Spanish flu. At that time, people were unprepared for this pandemic and could not foresee it since they were busy with the war. However, the Spanish flu claimed five times more lives than the war. Still, people tried to prevent such a catastrophe somehow. Of course, the first measures were sanitary. Moreover, many countries have introduced sanitary measures and restricted the access of some vehicles. However, this did not help much, as people took the measurements late. Another reason for this phenomenon may still be the disobedience of citizens to keep a distance and other quarantine measures (Short et al., 2018). Australia, in turn, closed its borders before detecting recorded people. Thus, she could resist a formidable disease by limiting her people from interacting with the outside world.
In conclusion, the reason for the frightening pandemic was the war, because of which the corpses lay in open lands and were not buried. In addition, the immunity of many soldiers and other residents has noticeably weakened. Closely interacting with each other, people caused the spread of the flu, and the late announcement of a pandemic also facilitated the distance. The main measures taken by humanity were primarily quarantining measures.
Reference
Short, K. R., Kedzierska, K., & Van de Sandt, C. E. (2018). Back to the future: lessons learned from the 1918 influenza pandemic. Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology, 8, 343, Web.