According to the National Environmental Health Association (2005), “The 15 types of hemagglutinin (H) protein and nine types of neuraminidase (N) protein form a large number of influenza viruses for which birds are the natural hosts” (p. 48). When the combinations change between H and N this produces the Flu strain which can be passed to farm animals like chickens and pigs that now can be passed to humans. When humans have no antibodies of a particular strain of Flu it can be easily passed from human to human through the air which is how epidemics usually …show more content…
The United States alone lost almost 400,000 people because the Influenza vaccine did not exist at that time. People had no way of fighting off the disease, and this particular virus aggressively attacked people’s lungs. When this epidemic first started doctors assumed it was something else, and was misdiagnosed because of the intense symptoms that people were having from the Spanish Flu. According to Saxena, Tripathi, and Rawat (2012), “These symptoms include haemorrhage from mucous membrane, especially from nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial haemorrhage in the skin were also observed” (p. 3266). The Spanish Flu was the worst epidemic the world has ever experienced, and researchers said, this particular Flu epidemic was worst then the plague because it killed 30 million more people than the plague did. Therefore, scientists and researchers are frantically trying to create a drug to fight Influenza in case of another outbreak like the Spanish Flu from occurring