What Have We Learned From The Flu Pandemic Of 1918?

By Amanda Magnus,

Frank Stasio

Published April 4, 2018 at 12:22 PM EDT

photo of a young person in a mouth-covering mask in front of a closed theater. the sign says 'all theatres closed until further notice at request of mayor.'

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Many places of public gathering were closed during the 1918 flu pandemic to slow the spread of the disease.

Courtesy of UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

photo of several women working at desks, wearing mouth-covering masks

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Office workers organize to fight the flu while protecting against their own infection.

Courtesy of UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

photo of a large room with rows of people in cots, and makeshift dividers between them.

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A flu isolation ward at a naval training station in San Francisco, California.

Courtesy of UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

2018 marks the one-hundred-year anniversary of a flu pandemic that killed 50 to 100 million people and infected hundreds of millions around the world. Host Frank Stasio talks to James Leloudis, a history professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, about why the 1918 influenza was so deadly, and what impact it had on public health.
Epidemiologist Ralph Baric joins the conversation to share the science behind the influenza vaccine and what the next big flu epidemic could be like. Baric is a professor at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Leloudis and Baric will both be speaking at the symposium “Going Viral: Impact and Implications of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic” at UNC Chapel Hill. The symposium runs Wednesday, April 4 to Friday, April 6.