INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Bird Flu Today Public Awareness Campaign

the Fort Riley Army Hospital in Kansas was inundated with patients complaining of headaches, sore throats, and fevers. [2] Still contained to the Army hospital, the influenza epidemic had doctors on their feet for days on end. Doctors treated soldiers for their symptoms, and some of those soldiers were shipped to Europe to help bring the war to a close. However, something strange began to occur. The sick soldiers going abroad carried invisible invaders that had already mutated and were untreatable by available medicines. Doctors had no idea what was causing the outbreak and continued to treat the soldiers for their symptoms. As soldiers returned home later that summer, they brought back a virus that had evolved into an extremely lethal disease that was eventually called Spanish Influenza. This strain of flu was so powerful that people who fell ill in the morning were often dead by nightfall. By October of 1918, 195,000 Americans had died from this global pandemic. It was not until 1933 that scientists finally discovered that a mutated influenza virus was causing the outbreak. Today, the source of this 1918 influenza pandemic is still being debated. Much of the evidence points to an avian (bird) flu that mutated into a form transmittable between humans. Recently, news reports about new strains of bird flu have raised concern among scientists and the publi