NIH Radio
Using evidence from the 1918 influenza pandemic – 2
Narrator: This is NIH Health Matters. I’m Joe Balintfy. Back in 1918 a flu virus began to circulate in just a few cases during the summer. Then by the fall of 1918 the virus mutated in a way that made it more infectious.
Taubenberger: We're trying to understand how this virus got going in people and why it caused disease and how it killed people.
Narrator: Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger is a senior investigator at the NIH.
Taubenberger: We think that in almost all cases in 1918, what actually ended up being the final blow and killing people were bacterial pneumonias.
Narrator: He explains the viral infection damaged the lungs so they couldn’t fight off a bacterial infection. For details, visit www.niaid.nih.gov. Health Matters is produced by the NIH, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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