The Outbreak Of Influenza Virus Outbreak

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Introduction
The last major influenza virus outbreak occurred in 1918, when the “Spanish flu” H1N1 pandemic killed between 20 and 40 million people worldwide. Before then, a pandemic would occur about once every century. However, this influenza pandemic was unusual because of its large death toll on healthy and young people, how fast it spread, and how deadly it was. Although vaccines had already been developed and were distributed to the public, the search for a cure for the influenza virus was delayed because scientists believed influenza was caused by the bacterium Haemophilius Influenzae. In 1933, it was discovered that the deadly disease was caused by a virus, and the quest for a vaccine was underway. This was accomplished soon after when Dr. Jonas Salk and Thomas Francis developed the first inactivated influenza vaccine in 1938 using the same egg-based methods already established to produce vaccines. The vaccine was initially used for soldiers during World War II. Unfortunately, early vaccines were not very effective, as it was nearly impossible to measure the potency of the va...

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