Shutterstock
Authors:
JoAnn O’Toole, RN, BSN
Lauren Robertson, BA, MPT
Susan Walters Schmid, PhD
Course Summary
Note: On March 14, 2020, CDC reported that COVID-19 is similar to the 1918 Spanish flu in terms of how rapidly it has spread across the globe. The coronavirus appears to have a case-fatality rate similar to the Spanish flu. To learn more about the influenza virus and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, please continue with this course. To learn more about the novel COVID-19 coronavirus, please go to our COVID-19 Pandemic course.
2018 was the 100th anniversary of one of the largest and most devastating flu pandemics in modern history in which more people died than in all of World War I. This course describes the current and historical impact of influenza, seasonal and pandemic. It includes influenza epidemiology, virus types and subtypes, how influenza viruses drift and shift, and a review of the worldwide impact of the 1918–1919 flu pandemic. We also discuss the goal of universal vaccination, diagnosis, and treatment, and the composition of the 2021 influenza vaccines.