#32 – Spanish Flu: Why It Also Killed the Young and Healthy

The 1918 Spanish flu was the deadliest influenza pandemic on record: between 20 and 100 million people died, from a world population of just 1.8 billion at the time. Florian Krammer explains why this H1N1 virus, with a case fatality rate of two to three percent, was so dangerous, where the misleading name comes from (Spain was neutral and had a free press when warring countries did not) and why mortality peaked among 20 to 40 year olds in a distinctive W-shaped curve. He also lays out his own hypothesis: seasonal influenza may have vanished entirely between 1891 and 1918, leaving a whole generation with no immunity at all. The episode covers cytokine storms, anti-mask leagues, famous victims including Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, and the reconstruction of the virus from formalin-fixed pathology slides and a body exhumed from Alaskan permafrost. It closes with 2009, when a descendant of the 1918 virus jumped back out of pigs into people. Link to John Barry’s book ‘The Great Influenza’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Influenza Review article about the 1918 H1N1 pandemic by Jeff Taubenberger and David Morens: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7528857/ +++++ You can support the podcast via our German Steady page: https://steady.page/virologisch/ Questions, feedback or topic suggestions? Feel free to contact us at: virological@podcastwerkstatt.com +++++ Krammer laboratory information Krammer Laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/krammerlab/ Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Science Outreach and Pandemic Preparedness https://soap.lbg.ac.at/ Ignaz Semmelweis Institute https://semmelweisinstitute.ac.at/ +++++ Conflict of interest statement The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has filed patent applications relating to influenza virus vaccines and therapeutics, SARS-CoV-2 serological assays and NDV-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines which name me as inventor. Mount Sinai has spun out a company, CastleVax, to commercialize NDV-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and I am named as co-founder and scientific advisory board member of that company. I have previously consulted for Curevac, Merck, Gritstone, Sanofi, Seqirus, GSK and Pfizer and I am currently consulting for 3rd Rock Ventures (US) and Avimex (Mexico). My laboratory has been collaborating in the past with Pfizer on animal models of SARS-CoV-2 and with GlaxoSmithKline and VIR on the development of influenza virus vaccines and therapeutics and we are currently collaborating with Dynavax, Inspirevax and Inimmune on development of influenza virus vaccines. My work in the on immunity and infectious diseases in the US is supported by the National Institutes of Health, but also by FluLab and Tito’s Handmade Vodka. In the past I have also received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH and the US Department of Defense. My work in Austria is supported by the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft and by the Ignaz Semmelweis Institute through the Medical University of Vienna.