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Flu Epidemics
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Flu viruses are divided in to three main groups: influenza A, B and C. Type A viruses are the source of most ‘ordinary’ flu epidemics and have caused all previous pandemics. Whereas influenza B and C viruses infect humans only, influenza A viruses can ... infect birds and other animals. This unique ability to jump the species barrier enables influenza A viruses to cause pandemics.
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Professor Neil Ferguson, an expert in flu epidemics from Imperial College London, said: “This particular bird flu variety generates more severe diseases in humans than most bird flu varieties. It would be more like the 1918 type of pandemic than the 1957 or 1968 pandemics . . . that is potentially a very severe event.”
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Oscillococcinum was first studied in France during the 1987 flu epidemic caused by an H1N1 virus. This multi-center study examined the effect of Oscillococcinum (200C) on the early symptoms of flu. Results were published in the peer-reviewed British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. A group of 149 non-homeopathic physicians enlisted 487 patients in the study, each of whom had developed flu-like symptoms during the previous 24 hours. Symptoms met strict criteria for the level of fever and the presence of associated flu symptoms. This took place in the midst of a documented flu epidemic.
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Epidemics are most often caused by a single serotype, mainly influenza A viruses, in a given season and are confined to a limited geographical region. If different influenza viruses appear in one location, the dominating virus type will be responsible for the epidemic. The WHO Collaborating Influenza Centers, along with local public health services, aim at early isolation and identification of the type and antigenic character of influenza viruses, which will enables them to recommend continued vaccination efforts.
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All known flu epidemics in humans have come from the type A influenza virus, which originates in birds. Birds harbor 15 subtypes of the type A virus, but only 6 subtypes are known to have infected humans.
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Named the Russian flu, this worldwide influenza epidemic, the most devastating up to that time, begins in Central Asia in the summer of 1889, spreads north into Russia, east to China and west to Europe. It eventually strikes North America, parts of Africa and major Pacific Rim countries. By conservative estimates, 250,000 die in Europe, and the world death total is two to three times that.
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Flu Epidemics