The seasonal H1N1 flu virus is probably a direct “offspring” of the flu strain that caused the global pandemic of the so-called “Spanish” flu of 1918-19, according to new assessments by European scientists.
The study is based on genetic analysis of samples collected in Europe during that pandemic, which is estimated to have killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide (compared to at least 15 million in the Covid-19 pandemic, according to recent estimates by the World Health Organization. Health).
Historical and medical records show that the peak of the mysterious flu pandemic occurred in the autumn of 1918 in the middle of the First World War and lasted until the winter of 1919. It was later, during the 1930s, that the cause of the outbreak was confirmed. was a virus, and much more recently scientific research has concluded that it was influenza A of the H1N1 subtype.
Researchers from several European countries, led by Dr. Sebastien Calviniak-Spencer and Thorsten Wolf of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, who published their findings in the journal Nature Communications, analyzed 13 rare samples taken from which had been collected between 1901-1931 and were kept in museums in Germany and Austria. Six of the samples came from 1918-19 and from them scientists were able to “read” (sequence) a complete genome (from Munich in 1918) and two partial genomes (from Berlin in 1918).
Genetic analysis compared to samples from modern influenza strains led to the conclusion that modern H1N1 flu It is probably “derived” from the original pandemic strain of 1918. This estimate contradicts the prevailing theory that the seasonal H1N1 virus originated by genetic recombination from parts of genomes of different viruses.
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