Preventing Pandemics through Vaccination: A Look into the Past

Here is a summary-excerpt of a Harvard University Kennedy School of Government Case Study entitled, “Swine Flu: Analogies from the Past.” The main question it asks is, How to prevent pandemics through vaccination?

• Spanish Flu 1918: The great pandemic of 1918 countered one tenet after another of what many perceived were basic features shared by all previous pandemics.
o It struck much faster than was normal with an unprecedented mortality rate.
o Apparently healthy people showed the full set of symptoms in an hour.
o Disease raced through communities at a phenomenal rate – worldwide it killed over twice as many people as was killed in combat in WWI (over 20 million lives including 50K in the US alone)
o Pandemic hit in three separate waves in less than a year with the second wave being the most deadly.
o Pigs also suffered from Spanish flu – thus the name swine flu. An Iowa veterinarian, J.S. Koen, noted that pigs and people would both pick up the virus.

Preventing Pandemics through Vaccination: A Look into the Past