Spanish Flu started in 1915?

UKMail article

A study has found there were investigations as early as 1915 into a mysterious illness which was killing World War I soldiers in France and England.  ,,,

A medical group in Etaples, northern France, reported treating hundreds of people with an 'unusually fatal disease' causing 'complex' breathing problems in 1917. And soldiers were being struck down with the virus across the Channel in Aldershot, England, in 1915 and 1916...

In a study of literature from the early 20th Century, Professor Oxford and his colleague Douglas Gill, a military historian, found records of the flu bubbling under the surface. Some 60,000 soldiers were being admitted to British and French army hospitals in 1915 and 1916 with flu-like symptoms – and around half of them were dying. But the virus quickly exploded and spread out of military bases and to people all over the world. 'In essence, the virus must have mutated,' said Professor Oxford. 'It lost a great deal of its virulence, but gained a marked ability to spread. In a study of literature from the early 20th Century, Professor Oxford and his colleague Douglas Gill, a military historian, found records of the flu bubbling under the surface.

Some 60,000 soldiers were being admitted to British and French army hospitals in 1915 and 1916 with flu-like symptoms – and around half of them were dying. But the virus quickly exploded and spread out of military bases and to people all over the world. 'In essence, the virus must have mutated,' said Professor Oxford. 'It lost a great deal of its virulence, but gained a marked ability to spread..

Ebola update

StrategyPage has an article about the Ebola epidemic in the Congo. Over 1000 have died, and it is worried that refugees could spread the disease into Uganda.

Alas, terrorists (both Islamic and ordinary thugs) have been attacking clinics trying to treat folks there.

and they go into the real problem: Corruption.

Science magazine has an article about the epidemic also. They have been using a new vaccine to stop it from spreading.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will expand its use of the experimental Ebola vaccine that more than 110,000 have already received to try to stop an unusually stubborn outbreak of the disease. New vaccination strategies will attempt to reduce the security risks faced by health care workers in the outbreak region, which is home to nearly two dozen rebel groups—some of which have attacked response teams.

the problem? Not enough vaccine. The article notes that a partial dose would give protection, so that would enable medics to "stretch" the limited supply (we did the same thing in Africa when Measles vaccine first came out 40 years ago: we gave one third dose. One problem is that the vaccine wears off in 10 years, and if you gave it to children below 18 months it might not work because antibodies from their mom interfered with it. The good news is that those given the shot and who got measles usually didn't die of it).

One way the vaccine is being used is to give shots to contacts and to contacts of contacts: but it doesn't seem to be working here,

I wonder if this is maybe because not all cases are caught early enough or maybe because the large number in extended families/friends are not all found.

one note on those attacking clinics:

The WHO has been trying to use local folks in the outbreak: They would know the culture and be trusted (if they were the same tribe) whereas outsiders would tempt thugs and terrorists to rob and kidnap "europeans" (i.e. non local people with paler complexions) for ransom.


but of course MSM only posts about "doctors without borders", not local folk or especially not about missionaries (either European or African) who risk their lives.

and since all black people look alike (Yes, I am being sarcastic), there is not a lot of information about the tribal componant in the victims or caregivers.

I worked in Liberia and Zimbabwe, but have little knowledge about the DRC or even Uganda.

The Harare Tribune says they are preparing for the disease if a traveler should bring it there. 96 people have been quarantined as contacts but so far no one has come down with the disease.

Dengue vaccine approved

I'm too tired to write so am posting links and may write an essay about it later.

Instapundit.

has 2 comments by DaveW:

Aedes aegypti and to a lesser extent Aedes albopictus are the primary vectors of dengue, zika, yellow fever, and other nasty arboviruses. Both are weed mosquitoes carried around the world by people and living around people breeding in accumulations of water in pots, tanks, garbage, old tires etc. We could easily eliminate them with a concerted effort. Even before World War II, and with no DDT or any other useful insecticide, public health officials were able eradicate Aedes aegypti from areas along the Gulf Coast just by vigorously enforcing sanitation and treating tank water. What the World lacks is the political will (wherever halfwit environmentalism has taken hold) and functional public health organisations elsewhere. Apparently even totalitarian Cuba can't control their arbovirus vectors.

The southern US is broadly infested with the mosquito vectors of dengue and other nasty arboviruses. They keep popping up in California too. The reservoir of dengue is people with an active infection of the virus. Put some people with the virus circulating in their blood into a neighbourhood with populations of the mosquito vector and just wait. That's what happens every year in northern Queensland and the Northern Territory in Australia. The solution is not vaccinating hundreds of millions of people for all the various strains of dengue (last I heard there were 7), zika, yellow fever etc. with the same vectors and reservoirs. The solution is to eliminate the vectors. This would take far less effort than eliminating polio or small pox or the Guinea Worm and we have all the tools we need right now. The mosquito vectors are only two species and both live around people and sanitation is one key strategy. What we don't have is any governments that really care enough to make the effort (and also a millstone of anti-science environmentalists to block any efforts made). •Reply•Share ›

NYTimes article mentions the problem in the Philippines

The illness, also called breakbone fever, can be excruciating, with high fevers, headaches, muscle and joint pains, and lingering weakness.

A second infection of dengue can lead to a severe form of the disease, which can cause hemorrhage or shock and can be fatal.

An estimated 400 million dengue virus infections occur around the world, and there are about 500,000 cases of the severe form, dengue hemorrhagic fever, which causes about 20,000 deaths, according to the C.D.C. No drugs are approved to treat dengue disease.

According to the C.D.C., most cases of dengue fever in the 48 contiguous states were acquired elsewhere by travelers or by immigrants, although some isolated outbreaks have occurred, such as in South Texas in 2005. Dengue is endemic in the United States territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

“I think the message is that this is such a serious disease that we need to have something,” said Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University.

He expressed concern that the vaccine’s acknowledged risks could worsen broader — and unfounded — skepticism about vaccines, which is fueling a separate global outbreak of measles. “This is going to give them more ammunition,” he said. “They can take this and say look, we are releasing a vaccine that is known to have issues.” In the Philippines, childhood vaccinations against measles dipped in the aftermath of the uproar over Dengvaxia, contributing to an outbreak in that country that has led to more than 400 deaths since January, according to a report this week by Unicef and the World Health Organization.

NPR notes the problem with the vaccine:

That shot launched a massive vaccine campaign to inoculate nearly 1 million schoolchildren with Dengvaxia. The goal was to save thousands of kids' lives and prevent an estimated 10,000 hospitalizations over a five-year period. But in the end, estimates are that more than 100,000 Philippine children received a vaccine that health officials say increased their risk of a severe and sometimes deadly condition. I

n addition, other children who received the vaccine may have been endangered because, their parents alleged, they were not in good health.

the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur spent 20 years — and about $2 billion — to develop Dengvaxia. The company tested it in several large trials with more than 30,000 kids globally and published the results in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

But halfway around the world from the Philippines, in a Washington, D.C., suburb, one scientist was worried about the new vaccine. "When I read the New England Journal article, I almost fell out of my chair," says Dr. Scott Halstead, who has studied dengue for more than 50 years with the U.S. military.

When Halstead looked at the vaccine's safety data in the clinical trial, he knew right away there was a problem. For some children, the vaccine didn't seem to work. In fact, Halstead says, it appeared to be harmful. When those kids caught dengue after being vaccinated, the vaccine appeared to worsen the disease in some instances.

Specifically, for children who had never been exposed to dengue, the vaccine seemed to increase the risk of a deadly complication called plasma leakage syndrome, in which blood vessels start to leak the yellow fluid of the blood. "Then everything gets worse, and maybe it's impossible to save your life," Halstead says. "A child can go into shock." "The trouble is that the disease occurs very rapidly, just in a matter of a few hours," he adds. "And there's nothing on the outside of the body to signify the person is leaking fluid on the inside."

The complication is rare, says Halstead. Still, he was so worried about the safety concerns that he wrote at least six editorials for scientific journals. He even made a video to warn the Philippine government about the problem.

FDA article here.