1918 Pandemic Great Influenza

1918 was the year of the great influenza which spread all over the world leading to estimated death of 50 million people worldwide and of this the country that was most affected was India that had alteast one-fifth of this death toll. In the history of world of pandemics there are only two which have taken more lives than this pandemic. The plague of Justinian that lasted for fifty years around AD 542 killed 100 million people and the Black Death of 1347-50 that had a toll of 62 million.

In 1918 nobody knew what causes influenza and the enemy was invisible. The world was already going through the first world war and hence the coverage of the pandemic was really dismal and lot of censorship was being done on most of the publishing houses by the government in order to keep the morale of the people high.

The origin of the 1918 pandemic is somewhat a story in itself. It got the sobriquet Spanish Flu because the first cases were highlighted by the media there as all other countries were participating in First World War and media was censored in most of the countries. Some of the research points out that it started in China and was introduced to American and French armies by Chinese workers. There are other contesting theories of origin and Haskell County in Kansas is thought to be the starting point according to many scientists. The first outbreak started in US in March 1918.

The Pandemic radiated from Northern France in April, North Africa in May, India and China in June and within four months it spread all across the world.

India and its tryst with Great Influenza

British India did not cover whole of India and there were still small kingdoms and hence the data was not available for all of India. The British India consisted of about 75% of Indian population at that point of time. India was possibly the hardest hit country by the most virulent outbreak in the recorded history.

First wave of the Flu started in India in June 1918, mostly from the ships that docked Mumbai bringing back people who have fought first world war. And very soon it spread around the whole of India. Second and a more deadly wave started in September 1918 with huge increase in infection and death rate. The spread is attributed movement of troops, postal peons of the Railway Postal Service and panic migration of sick people through railways

The general trend of death per 1000 population was around 30 for most of the states in British India.

The virulence of the virus was exacerbated because the virus took away the first line of defense in the lungs and made it fertile place for other bacteria to come and attack leading to pneumonia. Another difference of the pandemic was it affected the population between 20-40 more than other groups and was also more deadly for the women in the same age group. Generally people aged over 55 were prone to deaths due to Influenza in earlier influenza endemics.

The pandemic led to shortage of food items and the inflation has raised to alarming levels. The effect on the age group between 20-40 also led to decrease in fertility rates

Quotes from 1918 Pandemic

Suryakant Tripathi “Nirala” – “I travelled to the riverbank in Dalmau and waited. The Ganga was swollen with dead bodies. At my in-laws’ house, I learned that my wife had passed away. This was the strangest time in my life,” he recalled later ” My family disappeared in the blink of an eye. All our sharecroppers and labourers died, the four who worked for my cousin, as well as the two who worked for me. My cousin’s eldest son was fifteen years old, my young daughter a year old. In whichever direction I turned, I saw darkness. The newspapers had informed us about the ravages of the epidemic”

Major Norman White (Sanitary Commissioner of India) “There is ample evidence during the first epidemic of the introduction of infection into a locality from another infected locality. The railway played a prominent part, as was inevitable. During the panic caused by the epidemic the trains were filled with emigrants from infected centres, many of them being ill. The post office also was an important agency in disseminating infection, also very largely through the railway postal service. Lucknow, Lahore, Simla and other cities are said to have been infected in this manner.”

The End

The pandemic came like a whirlwind and after the deadly second wave the virulence as well as infectivity reduced a lot. There was no vaccine that could be developed. The two months of September and October was worst for India.

Reference

• The 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic—The Indian Experience I.D Mills
• Wikipedia
• Radiolab (Dispatches from 1918)