Not to worry and go to bed....stay Indoors

The Spanish Flu (1918-20): The deadliest pandemic of 20^th century that ravaged through India a century ago

“Not to worry and go to bed” was the advice given by Times of India in its  July 1918 paper exhorting people in Bombay to stay indoors as the city was hit by a deadly flu which went on to become the deadliest pandemic of the twentieth century reportedly killing nearly five crore people worldwide of which over a crore were Indians .

Just as the world was just coming to terms after the end of World War I, the pandemic, which came to be known as The Spanish Flu, affected a third of world’s population and killed more people than the WWI did. It is estimated that nearly two crore people were killed during the WWI, half of them being civilians. The Flu infected 28 per cent of all Americans, killing nearly 6.75 lac, 10 times as many as in the WWI. Off the US soldiers who died in Europe, half of them fell to the influenza virus and not to the enemy.

Spanish Flu, the influenza pandemic which was caused by an HINI virus with genes of avian origin, entered India through a ship of returning soldiers from WWI that docked in Bombay in June 1918, ravaged India. It swept through the city affecting almost each and every household leading to closing down of offices and factories.

From Maharashtra, the pandemic spread to Gujarat where it swept through the ashram where Mahatma Gandhi lived, infecting the Mahatma and his associates who were fortunate to recover after a long period of illness. Any other outcome would have been disastrous for the country’s freedom struggle. A second wave of the epidemic began in September 1918 in southern India and spread along the coastline.

The disease initially spread during WWI by exploiting the crowded conditions in an era when trench warfare was the norm. The infections were noticed across military camps but countries in the middle of WWI namely Britain, Germany, France and the US kept it a secret in the beginning in an attempt to keep the morale of the forces high. Spain, which was not a party in the war, reported the outbreak of the disease accurately, thus giving it the name The Spanish Flu.

Since there were no vaccines to protect against influenza infections and no antibiotics to treat secondary infections, control efforts were limited to isolation, quarantine, personal hygiene and limiting public gatherings, all having such a striking similarity to the times that we are presently living through.

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