What happened in 1918?
The deadly 1918 version of the flu virus - called H1N1 - was an unusual virus. It caused healthy young people to develop viral pneumonia almost overnight, and victims often died within 48 hours.
Medicine was fairly basic. Countries banned large gatherings of people, and ill people were strictly quarantined. In some countries sneezing in public was made a finable offence.
Between 25 and 30 per cent of the world's population caught the 1918 flu, which spread worldwide in less than a year.
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The most common way to catch flu is through inhaling droplets from coughs or sneezes which contain the virus.
Image: SSPL |
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