Pandemic Flu Development - Assignment Example

There is a big gap between the lifestyle of the early 20th century and the 21st century. The Nation’s Health website reveals that life expectancy in the early 20th century was short. Perhaps this was attributed to communicable diseases that were spreading easily from one person to another. For example, pneumonia, tuberculosis, influenza, and diarrhoea are some communicable diseases that were spreading and killing people. Non-communicable diseases and accidents also contributed to a significant number of deaths. Diseases such as heart attack and cancer are some communicable diseases that killed people in the early 20th century. Accidents resulted from unregulated workplaces.

According to Wever and Bergen (2014), pandemic influenza killed many American soldiers far more than the ones who died during the war in Europe. Several factors contributed immensely to the spread of influenza. Pandemic Influenza is a communicable disease that can spread easily from one individual to another. One factor that contributed to the spread of influenza in camps was crowding. Spaces in camps were limited and as a result, soldiers had to stay together in small spaces.

Morens et al. (2010) point out that the cause of the 1918 pandemic flu was the influenza A virus of subtype H1N. The source of the virus is related to birds, mainly waterfowl such as ducks and geese. The birds mentioned above act as reservoirs for the virus. However, it is still not clear how bird-related influenza viruses adapt to the mammalian host, infect different cells and spread to humans. On the other hand, the current pandemic flu especially the 2009 H1N1 influenza s said to have resulted from the recombination of genes. The genes that brought the current H1N1 are a virus that caused the 1918 pandemic flu and the swine virus adapted to birds.

There are, however, factors in the current society that can trigger the spread of the virus to the population. In ancient times, the virus could spread easily throughout the world. The current society can contain the virus by keeping infected people in one place. Nonetheless, the problem is the availability of medical staff to deal with and contain the spread of pandemic flu.