Influenza virus: History and discovery

While the medical profession had started to recognize flu as an infectious disease in the early 1890s, four decades of laboratory work had failed to determine its cause or put its diagnoses and control on firm laboratory footings. The term “influenza” was coined by an Italian in the mid-1700’s to connote a disease resulting from miasma (bad air).

The human disease is thought to have arisen about 6000 years ago. When the influenza pandemic struck in 1918, most scientists and doctors believed it was caused by bacteria. Killing up to 100 million people worldwide, the pandemic was the deadliest in history.

A human influenza virus was not isolated until 1933. Wilson Smith, Christopher Andrews, and Patrick Laidlaw first identified the virus that causes human influenza. They discovered that they could use ferrets to isolated a ‘filterable virus’ from flu patients and with this research animal, begin to determine flu’s identity as a ‘virus disease’. Their finding was publishing in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

Seven years later, the influenza B various was isolated and 10 years after that influenza virus was isolated.

The twenty-first century’s first influenza pandemic caused by the commonly referred ‘swine flu’ virus strain (H1N1) 2009 has had a major economic impact across the world and accounted for 414,000 confirmed cases and 5,000 death worldwide.

The 2005 completion of the entire genome sequence of the 1918 H1N1 pandemic influenza virus represents both a beginning and an end. Investigators have already begun to study the virus in vitro and in vivo to better understand its properties, pathogenicity, transmissibility and elicitation of host responses.

Influenza virus: History and discovery

History of influenza

In March of 1918, American soldiers training in Camp Function, Kansas, suddenly came down with a particular strong strain of the flu.

Many of those who got sick, contracted pneumonia because their bodies were so weak from having been so ill.

The term influenza stems for the Latin word influere, which means ‘flowing into’ or ‘creeping into’. People in fifteenth-century Italy thought the sickness was caused by the ‘influence’ of the stars, so they named it ‘influenza’.

During 3000 BC to 2000 BC, influenza first time capable of infecting humans. It probably arises in central Asia.

The earliest descriptions of influenza are commonly attributed to Hippocrates. In the writings of Hippocrates in 412 BC there is a description of an epidemic in North Greece with symptoms similar to influenza.

Roman historian Livy who lived between 59 BC and 17 AD described a flu-like disease that attacked the Roman army and the enemy soldiers they were fighting.

Between 1781 and 1782, an influenza pandemic infected two-thirds of Rome’s population and three-fourths of Britain’s population. The disease continued to spread in North America, the West Indies and South America.

The spread of this pandemic culminated with an influenza epidemic in New England, New York and Nova Scotia in 1789.

While influenza has afflicted humans for centuries, it has been claimed that it was in the nineteenth century that influenza became an endemic, disease in the majority of the countries in the world, regularly producing large epidemic and pandemics. The first worldwide pandemic of influenza happened in 1833.

In 1940 the influenza B virus was isolated and the influenza C virus in 1949. Since 1945, an active influenza vaccination has been available.
History of influenza

History of word of influenza

The earliest mention of a condition with clearly flulike symptoms comes from 1173, but the term ‘influenza’ itself was not used until about 1357.

The word influenza is Italian for influence, as in the astral or occult influence of a visitation or outbreak that affects many people at the same time. Italy’s population suffered many plaques and epidemics, because at the time it was a center of trade and travel.

According to one widely reported explanation, the term refers to an ‘influence of the stars.’ As the star aligned on their position, 15th century Italian thinkers believes the positions of celestial bodies influenced the timing of flu outbreaks.

Other account suggest that the illness as caused by an ‘influence del freddo’ an influence of cold weather. 

The French used the term ‘grippe’ to describe a condition strikes quickly and causes sore throat, cough, runny nose, fever, chills and aching joints. The term ‘grippe’ was used in the United States in the earlier years of the 20th century, especially during the 1918 pandemic.

In Britain in 1485, a disease called the ‘English Sweat’ which had many flulike symptoms, killed thousands of people.

In a severe flu outbreak of 1743 the word influenza was applied to the epidemic that began in Italy and spread throughout Europe. The world influenza is believed to have first been used in English in 1743 when it was adopted, with an anglicized pronunciation, during an outbreak of the disease in Europe.

Since then, the influenza, shortened to flu, means a serious infectious disease characterized by muscle and joint aching, prostration, and respiratory congestion with fever and headache.
History of word of influenza

Bird Flu H5N1

A flu pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus emerges for which people have little or no immunity, and for which there is no vaccine. The disease spreads easily person-to-person, causes serious illness, and can sweep across the country and around the world in very short time.

The highly pathogenic Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 virus is an emerging avian influenza virus that has been causing global concern as a potential pandemic threat. It is often referred to simply as "bird flu" or "avian influenza" even though it is only one subtype of avian influenza causing virus.

In 1918 the “Spanish Flu” pandemic swept the world, stemming from the H1N1 influenza A virus, and killed between 50 million to 100 million people during the 18 months of the pandemic. In 1957, the "Asian Flu" outbreak claimed more than 100,000 lives. To blame was the H2N2 influenza virus. In 1968, the H3N2 virus was responsible for the loss up to 750,000 lives in the "Hong Kong Flu" pandemic.

1997: In Hong Kong, avian influenza A (H5N1) infected both chickens and humans. This was the first time an avian influenza virus had ever been found to transmit directly from birds to humans. During this outbreak, 18 people were hospitalized and 6 of them died. In 1998, H5N1 is found in two more people in Hong Kong. One eventually dies.

In 2003, 83 people are infected with the H7N7 strain, with one fatality. In 2004, the H5N1 and H7N3 strains infected dozens of people in Vietnam and Thailand--and two in Canada. Many of these people died.

In 2005, strains have been found to infect people in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand. Around 60 people have died, and strains are being detected in animals now for the first time in such places as Romania, Greece, Turkey, Russia, England In 2006, increased numbers of Antiviral Medication, stockpiling of medications and many tests around the world on wild animals and birds.
Bird Flu H5N1