A man goes to see his local clinician. He reports that he has the flu; nothing too serious at the first thought. He did not plan to see a doctor, but in the past few days he has become too weak to work and that morning started to cough up blood. He contemplated whether he should go to the hospital, but he remembered the news saying that there was an overflow of patients and a rather large proportion waited for hours to receive treatment, so he resorted to the clinic His doctor sadly explains that he does not know what was happening to the man's body, but there have been hundreds of more reports of the same symptoms. The man asked what he should do about it. He was given medications to help open his air passages, to limit contact with others,
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Everyone has gotten sick with the flu at least once in their life: it comes often and acts like "an irritation rather than a killer" (). That is exactly why, during its first wave, no one was really worried about it. It was proven not...
The pandemic would occur in three waves, affecting so many lives that ...
Witucki 2!
It is not shocking when the title 1918 influenza pandemic is not commonly heard or known, yet “it would kill more people than any other outbreak of disease in human history. Plague in 1300s killed a far larger proportion of the population ... but in raw numbers influenza killed more than the plague then, more than aids today” (Barry 4).
This was one of the most significant pieces of history that solved deadly viral cases and brought a new perspective on the flu season, yet that era was kept locked away, hiding from the truth needed today.
The story of the 1918 strain began in Spain during the height of World War I. There is no specific proof or answer to where the influenza virus came from, but most people blame this country because this area was the first to diagnose and recognize this disease. This lead to the common nickname Spanish flu or Spanish Lady for the virus (Peters …show more content…
Viruses cannot simply transmit themselves to one person at will. They need special genes to be able to unlock the cell and one of the specific hemagglutinin genes, also known as the key to the cell. Once it has the correct key, it diffuses its DNA with the cells, so it can then make more copies of itself. This gene is also referred to as H. Once the virus is able to make its copies, it faces another problem. The copies are not able to release themselves from their host cell. This calls for another type of gene named Neuraminidase. Also, this is referred to just N. Once the copies are free they transfer themselves to other cells to repeat the process. This process is not that simple besides using scientific keys and knives. There are sixteen different H genes and nine N genes. Picking one from both types of genes, multiple combinations could be created. However, there is only one combination for each specific disease. In the case of the influenza pandemic, scientists have learned that it needed the H1 gene and the N1 gene, thus together creating H1N1 ("The 1918 Flu
Everyone has gotten sick with the flu at least once in their life: it comes often and acts like "an irritation rather than a killer" (). That is exactly why, during its first wave, no one was really worried about it. It was proven not...
The pandemic would occur in three waves, affecting so many lives that ...
Witucki 2!
It is not shocking when the title 1918 influenza pandemic is not commonly heard or known, yet “it would kill more people than any other outbreak of disease in human history. Plague in 1300s killed a far larger proportion of the population ... but in raw numbers influenza killed more than the plague then, more than aids today” (Barry 4).
This was one of the most significant pieces of history that solved deadly viral cases and brought a new perspective on the flu season, yet that era was kept locked away, hiding from the truth needed today.
The story of the 1918 strain began in Spain during the height of World War I. There is no specific proof or answer to where the influenza virus came from, but most people blame this country because this area was the first to diagnose and recognize this disease. This lead to the common nickname Spanish flu or Spanish Lady for the virus (Peters …show more content…
Viruses cannot simply transmit themselves to one person at will. They need special genes to be able to unlock the cell and one of the specific hemagglutinin genes, also known as the key to the cell. Once it has the correct key, it diffuses its DNA with the cells, so it can then make more copies of itself. This gene is also referred to as H. Once the virus is able to make its copies, it faces another problem. The copies are not able to release themselves from their host cell. This calls for another type of gene named Neuraminidase. Also, this is referred to just N. Once the copies are free they transfer themselves to other cells to repeat the process. This process is not that simple besides using scientific keys and knives. There are sixteen different H genes and nine N genes. Picking one from both types of genes, multiple combinations could be created. However, there is only one combination for each specific disease. In the case of the influenza pandemic, scientists have learned that it needed the H1 gene and the N1 gene, thus together creating H1N1 ("The 1918 Flu