Is a Flu Pandemic Imminent?-- Part 3: Certainly Possible and Likely

Continued from June 3.  This is from an article written in the February 28, 2018, Chicago Tribune "Is a flu pandemic imminent?" by Dennis Thompson.

"Many medical advances since 1918 have improved people's ability to survive a flu infection, including antivirals and antibiotics, ventilators (I'd never heard this term before, but now sure have) and vaccinations to protect against both the flu and pneumonia, said Dr. Nicole Bouvier.

"We have good supportive care to nurse people through an acute and horrible case of flu," she said.  "We're better able to get people through a critical illness than we were in 1918."

Additionally, the 1918 influenza virus -- an H1N1 strain -- seems to have been more virulent than any flu that's since gone on to cause a pandemic.  In fact, the 1918 flu was so bad that it has echoed through history.  Epidemiologists believe almost all animal-derived influenza that have occurred since then have been caused by strains descended from the 1918 virus.

"It certainly is possible that a flu virus could again arise in the animal reservoir that us more pathogenic than the typical flue,"  Bouvier said.

And, remember this was written just over two years ago.  I set the article aside to write about it at some point and just recently came across it and figured it would be a good time to print it.