Influenza or the flu is an infectious disease first discovered in 1931. There are four types of influenza viruses(A, B, C, and D), and A and B are the reason for seasonal flu. Before that during the flu pandemic in 1918, all scientists thought about when somebody got the flu was because of bacteria. But as more and more people were killed and the number rose up and killed millions, researchers started to get curious and started to study influenza.
The flu can come suddenly and symptoms will appear fast. These symptoms include fever, coughing, chills, a sore throat, headaches, and tiredness. Children may also experience vomiting, but adults probably might not. But there is something which might surprise you. Some people who get infected might not even experience symptoms, but still be contagious. People such as the elderly, young children, or people with particular health problems are at greatest risk. Being contagious the flu can spread easily, and as far as 6 feet.
Researchers Jonas Salk and Thomas Francis were the ones who helped develop the first vaccine for the flu, in 1944. Some people, however, treat flu, by resting and drinking water. When the flu pandemic struck in 1918, nobody knew a way to cure to it or a way to prevent it. Nobody at that time knew it was the flu which was causing the deaths then, though. It was too bad nobody had found a way to stop the disease earlier as the flu pandemic killed around 50 million people worldwide.
The flu pandemic in 1918 was called the Spanish flu, but besides that, there have been other epidemics. The Asian Flu, Hong Kong Flu, and the most recent, Swine Flu are all three out of the four major flu epidemics to ever have happened. These pandemics also became widespread due to a very important factor of the flu. Flu is contagious, and this helped the flu spread. An example is the most recent, the Swine Flu pandemic. Swine Flu is very contagious and because of this if one person in a family would catch so will the whole family.
Even though the flu is pretty dangerous and not so good to have, the flu is still very interesting. Some flu viruses can live on hard surfaces for up to 2 days and up to 12 hours on cloth. The Spanish flu epidemic in 1918 seems bad, but because World War 1 was going on at that time it outshined the Spanish Flu, and less attention was drawn to it than it would normally have been. If you thought that the deaths of WW1 must have been greater than the Spanish Flu at that time, you are actually wrong. The Spanish Flu killed more Americans in 1 year than the number of people who died in both World Wars, the Korean War and the Vietnam war.
Now that you know everything about the Flu, start being more careful and try to prevent the flu from happening by always washing your hands and keeping healthy.Don’t forget to also get flu shots annually to help keep the flu away.