A scene from Mexico City Monday. (AP Photo/Enric Marti
It’s been 40 years since the last flu pandemic, the Hong Kong flu, which killed nearly a million people. Advances in medicine and our understanding of influenza has helped mitigate what was once a globe-wide killer. Here’s a look at the latest ongoing news from the swine flu.
But for some historical perspective, check out some of these numbers:
- 1918 Spanish flu — killed around 50 million people worldwide (some say more, some less)
- 1957 Asian flu — killed 1 to 1.5 million
- 1968 Hong Kong flu — killed almost a million
Scary stuff. Despite a few flu epidemics since 1968, however, the flu hasn’t wiped out millions of people in a global pandemic like it did in earlier history (compare that 50 million dead from the Spanish flu to the 6 to 11 million killed in the Holocaust and you get some perspective). Are we due for another pandemic or has medicine made such massive pandemics a thing of the past. Is the government or media overreacting?
Fears of an impending pandemic pop up every few years. Last year, Hong Kong closed all schools for two weeks when an uptick in the flu killed two people. Failing to react swiftly to what could turn out to be a pandemic, however, could be catastrophic.
For a quick and informative look at the flu through history, check out these two slide shows from Newsweek and NPR:
Noah R. Bombard is the new media editor for The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover. He is a former award-winning newspaper and magazine editor who has been covering news in Massachusetts since 1997.