Posted on 08/17/2008 11:05:18 AM PDT by decimon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Antibodies from survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic, the worst in human memory, still protect against the highly deadly virus, researchers reported on Sunday.
The findings by a team of influenza and immune system experts suggest new and better ways to fight viruses -- especially new pandemic strains that emerge and spread before a vaccine can be formulated.
These survivors, now aged 91 to 101, all lived through the pandemic as children.
Their immune systems still carry a memory of that virus and can produce proteins called antibodies that kill the 1918 flu strain with surprising efficiency, the researchers report in the journal Nature.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Lib unions went crazy resisting innoculation of small pox after 2001.
Perhaps we can come up with a voluntary system of innoculations for diseases that are no longer commonly found, but might be re-introduced accidentally or via terrorism. I know plenty who would pay for such protection.
My grandmother had this flu. She died from cancer in 1958. But she was pregnant and sick in bed with the flu.
She lost her two year old son on Saturday, my uncle (who lived until 1983) was born on Wednesday, and she lost her four year old on Saturday.
How many such diseases are there? Maybe your idea is practical but I have no idea.
I'm 63 so I got the smallpox vaccination as a kid. In the Army I walked down a hallway where I was blasted in both arms with who-knows-what.
Horrible stories. Hope someone gets a handle on this before the next version breaks out.
My father had this flu in 1918. He was a soldier and was in New Jersey awaiting transport to Europe when he became ill. He survived but was unconscious for two weeks and never made it to Europe.
Many of you are probably not aware that there was an Encephalitis associated with the 1918 flu. The Encephalitis caused a condition commonly referred to as "sleeping sickness." My father was affected by this and would sometimes fall asleep for no apparent reason.
The Encephalitis was also recurrent and would sometimes recur in its most virulent form. This happened to him in 1946 and he died at the age of 56.
Everyone else is dead.......not a very good survival rate.
The 1918 pandemic has been largely ignored or underplayed in U.S. history courses.
Millions died, many within hours of contracting the virus.
Sorry to hear about your dad.
Do you know if the encephalitis was from a separate microbe or was an effect of the flu?
All the 102 year-olds I know agree with you.
It is interesting, in that the younger and healthier you were, the faster you died.
The mechanism was an overcharged autoimmune response to the virus, which filled the lungs with fluid.
So if you were old, or otherwise had a compromised immune system, you sneezed twice and felt no other effects.
This virus actually ended WWI, BTW. Nobody could field healthy troops anymore. Not even the US - a shp would leave for Europe, and half of the soldiers would die of the flu before it got there.
There was a book published a few years ago on this very subject. John M. Barry authored “The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History”.
Very slow going because of all the historical background and details. Woodrow Wilson comes off looking horrible; he was responsible for creating delays in counter-acting the spread of the disease.
I want a smallpox vaccine!
Usually.
The best part is that the entire RNA sequence of the 1918 flu has been published and is available for anyone who is interested:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070702145610.htm
Related info: Cold dry air increases chances of flu transmission. http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0103-does_winter_cause_the_flu.htm
From the Science Daily article: “Additionally, cold, low humidity air dries out the nasal passages and makes virus transmission more likely.”
Warm, dry indoor air also dries out the nose and throat. Don’t dry out and you’ll rarely get sick, in my experience.
I was going to say, living in the humid South may be a blessing in disguise....
I prefer warm, humid environs in the winter.
Except that air conditioning, when used, also dries you out. I'll bet that summer colds have risen with the use of air conditioning.
Thanks for the links, BTW.
I’m a motorcyclist. What air conditioning? :D
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