H1N1 Influenza Virus

In 1918, an influenza pandemic known as Spanish flu, caused by the H1N1 influenza virus, was reported to have infected at least half a billion people around the world. Estimates put the death toll at between 50 and 100 million people (which would have been 3%-5% of the entire population of the world at the – one of the deadliest epidemics in recorded human history. The H1N1 virus struck again in 2009. Fortunately the world was a bit better prepared.