What Made the 1918 Influenza Virus So Deadly?
The 1918 influenza virus was the deadliest in recent history, infecting approximately 30 percent of the world’s population and killing up to 40 million individuals, particularly young people. Recently, NIAID-supported researchers have been unearthing clues into what made the virus so deadly. After retrieving gene sequences of the virus from victims who had been buried in Alaska’s permafrost and from preserved tissue samples, researchers Jeffery K. Taubenberger, M.D., Ph.D., Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Rockville, MD, Terrence Tumpey, Ph.D., USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, Athens, GA, and Peter Palese, Ph.D., Christopher Basler, Ph.D., and Adolfo García-Sastre, Ph.D., Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, and their colleagues were able to construct viruses containing several of the 1918 influenza virus’ genes in an effort to winnow it down to its most lethal components. (Because the 1918 virus is considered very dangerous, the work
