Dr. Robert Bramson of East Marion, a former physician at Children’s Hospital in Boston and Massachusetts General Hospital, will give a talk on the deadliest disease outbreak in history and how it affected the East End at an East Marion Civic Association meeting Saturday morning.
The flu pandemic of a nearly a century ago claimed an estimated 50 million lives worldwide and more than half a million Americans.
Its rapid spread and virulence prompted the declaration of public emergencies and the closure of schools and public buildings as it decimated families and communities across the country, including on Long Island, where local newspapers at the time became filled with obituaries of its victims.
Biomedical researchers in 2005 announced a chilling discovery: The 1918 flu virus was a bird flu very similar to the H5 viruses infecting fowl populations and some humans in this century. The researchers made the discovery by examining frozen tissue samples of two soldiers who had died of the disease — including one at Camp Upton (now the site of Brookhaven National Lab), where he had reported for training prior to shipping out to Europe to fight in World War I.
Human infection by avian viruses today has remained low. Infection has been generally limited to people in close contact with infected birds and has not spread easily from person to person, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the CDC says it’s possible that avian influenza A viruses could change and gain the ability to spread among people. The federal government supports international surveillance for influenza viruses with pandemic potential and CDC is following the domestic HPAI H5 situation closely and coordinating with partners.
Bramson offers a “fascinating review” of the Great Influenza pandemic of 1918 and its implications for today, said East Marion Civic Association president Anne Murray.
The organization meets at the East Marion Firehouse on Route 25. Coffee and snacks will be served at 9:30. The presentation begins at 10 a.m.
