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"Russian flu" in the 70s - can we draw conclusions about the coronavirus pandemic?

2020-04-29T13:32:54.779Z


The coronavirus pandemic is not the first wave of diseases to paralyze entire countries. Some devastating epidemics broke out in the last century, such as the "Russian flu".


The coronavirus pandemic is not the first wave of diseases to paralyze entire countries. Some devastating epidemics broke out in the last century, such as the "Russian flu".

  • The "Spanish flu" between 1918 and 1925 is considered the worst pandemic in modern times. It claimed around 50 million lives. 
  • The "Russian flu" of 1977 and 1978 is also one of the pandemics that had an impact worldwide. Up to 700,000 people died at the time
  • The coronavirus pandemic is not triggered by influenza viruses, as in the abovementioned diseases, but by coronaviruses. However, there are some parallels. 

Most citizens have never seen anything like the Corona crisis. Younger people in particular have never before faced similar restrictions in everyday life. However, the global outbreak of the corona virus is not the first wave of diseases to affect humanity. It was preceded by many life-threatening infectious diseases caused by viruses or bacteria. These include Ebola virus disease or measles * . The latter could be brought under control through the possibility of vaccination. 

Various flu pandemics such as the "Spanish flu" and the "Russian flu" have also caused countless deaths in the past century. Although these were triggered by influenza viruses, there are some parallels to the current coronavirus pandemic *

"Russian flu" with up to 700,000 deaths worldwide

"Spanish flu", "Russian flu" and current flu * waves have led and still lead to tragic news . Not only epidemics - localized outbreaks of disease - but also pandemics keep breaking out. There is talk of a pandemic if an infectious disease does not stop at national borders and spreads worldwide. 

The "Russian flu", which is also a pandemic, cost the lives of around half a million people at the end of the 1970s - people under the age of 23 were the most affected, and around 700,000 children, adolescents and young adults died of the viral disease.

The last major flu epidemic hit Germany in 2017/18 . At that time, over seven million people went to see a doctor because of virus flu, and 25,100 people died as a result of the virus flu. This is the highest number of deaths in the past 30 years, as the Ärzteblatt Lothar Wieler, President of the Robert Koch Institute, quotes. The 1995/96 influenza season also fits in here: with around 8.5 million cases and around 30,000 deaths in Germany, it is also one of the most violent flu waves that Germany has seen in the past 30 years.  

Learn more about the real virus flu in the great influenza guide

Covid-19: Most serious coronavirus-triggered pandemic

Disease waves triggered by corona viruses have so far been mainly associated with the Asian region. The Sars virus spread to China in 2002/2003. In the course of this, this spread worldwide, a total of 8,096 patients were counted in 26 countries , with 774 people dying from the consequences. 

The Mers Coronavirus (Mers-CoV) is also one of the coronaviruses that cause severe respiratory diseases * . So far, 27 countries have been affected by Mers, according to the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety. By the end of November 2019, 2,494 laboratory-confirmed Mers cases had been counted worldwide, including 858 deaths.

The current Covid-19 pandemic, with 3,127,519 reported cases worldwide and 217,569 fatalities to date, is a sad record compared to other pandemics triggered by coronaviruses. Although 935,646 people are considered healthy again, the number of infected continues to increase, as reported by the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University. 

Also read : "You are immune, forget about the corona crisis, you are out": Doctors judge rapid antibody tests.

"Russian flu" and Covid-19: the viral diseases are similar

Covid-19, like the Russian and Spanish flu, is a disease that is transmitted via droplet and smear infection * and first affects the airways. As a result, the respiratory organs can be damaged to such an extent that life-threatening pneumonia can occur *. Covid-19 also has worldwide distribution in common with the pandemics that have broken out in the past and have serious consequences - and the high number of fatalities suggests that Covid-19 is a disease that is similar to the "Russian flu" .

However, the "Russian flu" was caused by influenza viruses of the A / H1N1 subtype - the subtype that was also the cause of the "Spanish flu" in 1918. The risk groups also differ *: Children, adolescents and young adults under the age of 25 in particular suffered from the "Russian flu" so severely that most fatalities were recorded in this age group. Researchers attributed this to the fact that those born after 1957 had insufficient immune protection against the virus. People born before 1957 had usually already come into contact with the A / H1N1 pathogen, which is why their bodies had already produced antibodies. 

The differences in risk groups and also the fact that long-term studies on Covid-19 as a new type of lung disease do not yet exist, or that there are not yet many sound and sometimes contradictory research results, do not allow any or only very vague comparisons between "Russian flu" and Covid -19 to

More sources: www.welt.de; www.lungenaerzte-im-netz.de; www.wikipedia.org

Read more : Zoonoses such as coronavirus infection as a global problem - biologist with urgent warning.

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The life-saving prick: These risk groups should be vaccinated against flu

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* merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network.

Source: merkur

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