1918 Influenza Research Paper

This letter is to express the importance and support of vaccinations for adults and children. Vaccinations were created to protect against dangerous communicable diseases. This can be observed in past history when during the times of early colonial America, the smallpox virus spread quickly among growing populations. The smallpox disease killed as almost as many as half of those who caught it. When one of the earliest forms of immunization, also known as inoculation, it was revealed that immunizing people did help reduce the number of deaths. The debate as to the safety of vaccinations is as old as vaccinations. The vaccinations were created to in hopes of protection against dangerous communicable diseases. Time, statistics and evidence has been proved that vaccinations do work. Vaccinations serve one purpose, to save people by reducing the risk of infections and contracting diseases. If people do not get vaccinated, protection is not guaranteed and the risk of irreversible health problems or death is inevitable.

Within two years, it killed 50 million people worldwide. It hindered the lives of 500 million throughout the world, and 675,000 lay dead from this in the United States alone. This killer became known as the Spanish Influenza. The Spanish Influenza struck at the perfect time, on the tail end of World War I. With soldiers densely populated in bunkers, the flu spread like wildfire, especially when it arrived in the United States of America. The Spanish Influenza was a stone-cold killer. Once an individual acquired the infection, within thirty hours, most would be dead. But, could something like this actually benefit Americans and their society? Most people would say that 675,000 deaths never improves a country, but in America’s

In the US, up to 64 million people are infected with influenza every year with 51 thousand cases resulting in death. (Treanor) The fever, runny nose, and body aches keep Americans curled up in their bed, miserable, all week. You try to do everything you can to isolate yourself from the virus, but somehow it always finds a way to get you sick. It seems like it is the same routine every year of taking days off work or completing make up work for school. Records of influenza symptoms date back thousands of years, with many massive outbreaks such as the 1918 Spanish flu and the 2009 Swine flu pandemic along the way. Scientists have been searching for a cure for years, but even through modern medicine, the fight against influenza continues. The structure, replication process, and limitations on modern medicine are just a few factors that keep influenza spreading across the world every year.

1981 years later, CDC colleagues managed to reduce the transmission of the virus to vulnerable people for part of the effort to get a flu vaccination that is recommended for and. insufficient progress to date remains less than 50% been made in view of the increasing speed of the HCWs influenza vaccine. Medical workers have identified a number of barriers to vaccination. But eliminate this barrier, and effectively increase the support rates of the multi-faceted program inoculation any inoculation, this program is a recent phenomenon, it was widely. Medical authorities are now considering a mandatory influenza vaccination for health care providers (Sullivan,

Influenza season is here again so it is time for everybody to add getting a flu shot to their “to-do” list. It is recommended for everyone to get flu shot from ages 6 months and older (McCarthy 1). It is the obligation of healthcare works and their employers to promote influenza vaccinations to patients and is an annual requirement for the workers as well (Lynkowski 1). Winter season is time for healthcare workers to get in line, roll up their sleeves and consent to treatment for a flu shot. For the hospital, their goal is to get all employees vaccinated, especially those who have direct contact with patients which brings up a number of ethical issues arising from the attempts to implement mandatory flu shots (Dubov 2530). The mandatory vaccination requirement is regularly a point of concern to those who have objections to vaccinations. Flu shots should be mandatory for healthcare workers despite objections in order to protect patients and to minimize work days missed due to illness.

Influenza, “ has been described as the greatest medical holocaust in history” and may have killed as many people as the Black Plague”. This illness, (which originated from southeast asia) was obviously quite lethal, but nowadays we have an effective mean of defense, a vaccine, also known as the flu shot!

Soon, the epidemic arrived in Chicago. On August 28, 1918, reports of the increased death rate in Massachusetts were reported in Chicago newspapers, warning citizens of the potential risk of the epidemic reaching them. Nationwide, military camps suffered mass outbreaks throughout September, and yet, the Chicago Tribune printed reassuring news stories that suggested the flu was under control. On September 8, 1918, the virus took its first victims of the city: sailors at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. Preventative measures were taken instantly. Quarantine controls were implemented at the station, in addition to treating the 50,000 sailors present with daily nose and throat sprays. Men were placed in isolation as soon as they showed mild symptoms, and all liberty leave was prohibited

Boston Smallpox Epidemic of 1721: When smallpox broke out in Boston, Cotton Mather introduced an untested medical procedure called “inoculation”, which would introduce a small amount of the virus to a patient, in hoping they would become immune to it. Many were opposed to it, even though it worked. Many people died due to the epidemic.

To prevent from any influenza outbreak, flu vaccination is the only prevention. Pediatric and geriatric population is more likely to be effect by it, so it is important to get them vaccine. Without influenza vaccination, serious illness may occur and can lead to death. However, even with the importance of vaccination not many people get vaccine, especially the older Hispanic population. Compared to other population, Hispanic older adult ages 65 and up has the lowest rate of vaccine with 50.6% where Non-Hispanic white is 68.6% (OMH, 2013). Also comparing to the overall population of their health, the older Hispanic adults face the highest levels economic insecurity causing them to suffer from lack of food, poor health and even inadequate or

The influenza pandemic of 1918, otherwise known as the “Spanish Flu’ was responsible for the deaths of 20 to 40 million individuals, resulting in a higher mortality than World War 1. More specifically, 675,000 Americans died, with the virus infecting close to 25% of the American population. As a result, studies have found the American lifespan during 1918-1919 had lowered 10 years due to the Spanish Flu.^1

In his book The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, John M. Barry tells the story of the influenza outbreak of 1918-1920, as well as the stories of the men and women who would bring about the medical breakthroughs to fight it, in vivid and well-researched detail. Broken up into three parts, each reading like more of a medical drama than the usual historical narrative, Barry ties in the stories of several men and women from William Welch, founder of the now world famous Johns Hopkins medical school to those such as Woodrow Wilson and John D. Rockefeller, all playing a role in the crisis that would come. In this book, Barry attempts to examine the period of history surrounding the great influenza outbreak of 1918-1920,

Most important endorsements are constructed on the ethics that influenza is an important public health danger, that the influenza vaccine is harmless and effective, and that vaccination is presently the best effective device for preventing influenza contamination. Recommendation that all healthcare workers in the United States be immunized yearly against influenza is launching influenza immunization as a typical norm of care. Vaccinating healthcare workers has two possible benefits, protecting them from influenza for their own individual health, permitting them to work consequently reducing disorder of health care settings; and ultimately caring other healthcare workers and patients who they come in contact with may be at great risk. Vaccination

For a number of years, the prediction of a new influenza pandemic of large-scale proportions, namely the Avian flu, has become a global concern.

An influenza pandemic is an outbreak of influenza that spans worldwide and is responsible for many serious illnesses and deaths. Influenza pandemics usually happen several times each century,

Once the child recovered from the cowpox disease, Jenner then tried to infect the child with smallpox, but the young man proved to be immune. “It seemed that this attempt at vaccination had worked. But Jenner had to work on for two more years before his discovery was considered sufficiently tested by the medical profession to permit widespread introduction.” (Alexander, 2003). Beginning in 1831 and ending in 1835, due to increasing vaccination, smallpox deaths were down to one in a thousand. The year of 1853 deemed obligatory for all children born after the first of August to receive routine immunizations. By 1898, one hundred years after Edward Jenner’s unveiling of the vaccine, smallpox in London had fallen dramatically – to one in every 100,000 (less than 50 people per