The study is based on genetic analysis of samples collected in Europe during that pandemic, which is estimated to have killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide (compared to at least 15 million in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to recent World Health Organization estimates).
Historical and medical records show that the peak of the mysterious influenza pandemic had occurred in the autumn of 1918 in the midst of the First World War and continued until the winter of 1919. But it was later, during the 1930s, that it was confirmed to be caused by a virus, and much more recently scientific research has concluded that it was influenza A of the H1N1 subtype.
Researchers from several European countries, led by Drs. Sebastian Calviak-Spencer and Thorsten Wolf of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, who published the paper in the journal Nature Communications, analysed 13 rare samples taken from human lungs collected between 1901 and 1931 and stored in museums in Germany and Austria. Six of the samples came from the period 1918-19 and from these the scientists were able to read (sequence) one complete genome (from Munich 1918) and two partial genomes (from Berlin 1918).
The genetic analysis compared to samples from modern influenza-era strains led to the conclusion that modern H1N1 influenza most likely originated from the original 1918 pandemic strain. This assessment contradicts the hitherto prevailing theory that the seasonal H1N1 virus has arisen through genetic recombination from genome segments of different viruses.
Source: CNA
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