Posted on 07/16/2025 5:50:49 AM PDT by Red Badger
The study showed the virus already had three crucial ways of adapting to humans right when the pandemic started.
Emergency hospital in Zurich's Tonhalle during the so-called “Spanish flu” in November 1918.
Schweizerisches Nationalmuseum, Inventarnummer LM-102737.46
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Scientists have “reconstructed” the genome of the 1918–1920 influenza virus, using a sample from a patient in Switzerland.
Researchers from the universities of Basel and Zurich studied a sample from the University of Zurich’s Medical Collection, taken from an 18-year-old who died in July 1918.
The study showed the virus already had three crucial ways of adapting to humans when the pandemic started.
“This is the first time we’ve had access to an influenza genome from the 1918–1920 pandemic in Switzerland. It opens up new insights into the dynamics of how the virus adapted in Europe at the start of the pandemic,” said Verena Schünemann, one of the study authors.
Decoding the virus
The Spanish Flu, or the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, was one of history’s deadliest, killing tens of millions worldwide and leaving a lasting impact.
The H1N1 influenza A virus was responsible for the pandemic, which spread globally from February 1918 to April 1920. The pandemic occurred in multiple waves, with the second wave in the fall of 1918 being the most severe and deadly.
It claimed an estimated 20 to 100 million lives worldwide.
While the Spanish Flu profoundly impacted humanity, its specific viral evolution remained largely a mystery for decades.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic greatly benefited from modern scientific techniques, allowing for a much more rapid and detailed understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants.
In today’s time, new viral epidemics present significant challenges to global public health.
To effectively counter these threats, it’s important to understand how viruses evolve and to apply lessons learned from past pandemics.
That’s exactly what an international team of researchers from the Universities of Basel and Zurich has achieved.
Researchers successfully decoded the genome of the 1918 influenza virus by utilizing an over 100-year-old formalin-fixed specimen from a patient in Zurich, who died during the pandemic’s first wave and underwent autopsy in July 1918.
A formalin-fixed specimen is a biological sample preserved with a formaldehyde solution to stop decay and keep its cellular structure intact.
VIDEO AT LINK...............
Mutations in virus
The team compared the newly sequenced Swiss genome with existing influenza virus genomes from Germany and North America.
The researchers discovered that the Swiss strain of the 1918 flu already possessed three human-adapted features at the pandemic’s outset, which remained present in the virus throughout its duration.
For example, two mutations helped the virus resist the body’s natural antiviral defenses, which are crucial for stopping animal viruses from infecting humans.
The virus also developed a third mutation that enhanced its ability to connect with human cell receptors, increasing its resilience and infectivity.
This feat wasn’t easy. As compared to stable DNA, influenza viruses carry their genetic information as RNA, which degrades much faster over time.
“Ancient RNA is only preserved over long periods under very specific conditions. That’s why we developed a new method to improve our ability to recover ancient RNA fragments from such specimens,” said Christian Urban, the study’s first author from UZH.
This technique now opens the door to studying even more historical RNA viruses.
This incredible research highlights the invaluable role of medical collections worldwide.
The insights gained from this 1918 Swiss virus genome will help us build better models, establish evidence-based foundations, and ultimately, be better prepared for the next global health challenge.
It's coming for sure.
Right, the Spanish Flu virus never went away, it mutated to a less deadly variant. None of the go away, which is one reason the Covid 19 propaganda was so infuriating.
The 1918 Flu was especially deadly because it hit young people hard. And fast. Feel a little under the weather at noon, dead by sundown.
The reason it was called Spanish Flu, was because information was so censored across the globe. Spanish newspapers were the only entity reporting on it.
.
THAT is what worries me too.
Perhaps how to create new and more devastating viruses in “controlled labs”. Because that’s safe and effective...
Why, so pharma companies can develop new "vaccines" that don't work and do more harm than good all for a few billion dollars.
Left out of the story was that the Spanish Flu originated in China as did all other pandemics since that time.
‘ Left out of the story was that the Spanish Flu originated in China as did all other pandemics since that time.’
No. It originated in Kansas.
The Spanish Flu killed quickly: sometimes people who appeared perfectly healthy in the morning were dead by late afternoon. Many of my family died from it, leaving orphans who were just taken in and raised by the survivors. The doctor came to see my father who had it as a child. My grandfather was angry when the doctor never returned, and when asked about it later, he said that he just assumed my father had died soon after the visit.
Noted that since google moved to AI generated responses to searches, example for the Spanish Flu, it downplays the role of Chinese labor used by the British army in 1916 and illness in their camps and the US in 1918.
The US military also imported Chinese labor in the lead up to entering WWI to take over housekeeping task at US army bases (Ft Riley and others) and is when the Spanish Flu hit the US in 1918.
Both the British and the US armies brought Chinese labor to their camps in Europe during WWI.
google’s AI generated responses likes to claim no role in the Chinese labor and the Spanish Flu in the US. The AI cannot bring itself to use the word China and instead uses “orient” to describe where the Chinese labor came from. Cannot offend China at all costs.
Today’s google’s searches using AI response is a big contrast to searches in the past that had better sources of information.
No bias at all with AI. /s
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