Team To Investigate, Test Theory About Spanish Flu
HONG KONG - This has been an exciting year for scientists attempting to prove the theory that flu is transmitted to people via swine, who had been infected by birds.
A team of researchers led by young Canadian medical geographer Kirsty Duncan traveled above the Arctic Circle to the small Norwegian coal-mining village of Longyearbyen this fall to find clues to the origins of the deadliest flu pandemic on record, the erroneously named Spanish Flu.
The 1918-19 outbreak has been traced not to Spain but to Camp Funston, a small Kansas Army post. A popular scientific theory is that the flu was caused when a Kansas pig was infected by an avian flu strain, possibly spread when the fecal matter of a wild duck flying over the plains fell into the pig's trough or drinking water.
Unlike most viruses, which are particularly dangerous to the very old and the very young, the Spanish Flu killed mostly young adults. Occurring at the height of World War I, it spread through armies around the globe and took more lives than the war did.
Because experts know that flu pandemics are cyclical, occurring three or four times a century, they are eager to unlock the secrets of the Spanish Flu and perhaps produce a vaccine that would prevent it from recurring. What they lack is a complete genetic picture of the killer virus.
After several years of research, Duncan found a graveyard in Longyearbyen, a town 800 miles from the North Pole, where seven young men who died of the 1918 virus are buried. Virologists hope the victims are deep enough in the Norwegian permafrost that their organs, containing the virus' genetic keys, remain frozen and intact.
In October, Duncan and her team gathered at the grave site, using ground-penetrating radar equipment to do depth readings on the corpses. The team is still evaluating the results.
If they look promising, Duncan said, the researchers will return to Norway next spring and drill into the frozen bodies for samples. If the latest flu theories are valid, they hope to find traces of bird and swine genes in the virus traces.