WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF FLU PANDEMICS?
| Top There have been 11 pandemics in the last 300 years. The 20th century saw three flu pandemics, in 1918-19, 1957-58 and 1968-69. The 1918-19 (Spanish) pandemic killed as many as 40-50 million people — more than the death toll from AIDS in more than two decades. Jet travel, the world’s huge population today and the larger number of people with compromised immune systems (from AIDS and cancer, for instance) as compared with 1918 mean the toll from so-called Spanish flu could be easily surpassed. Our current Pandemic of 2009 is still being watched closely to see how the next waves will affect humans.
