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Bacterial infections, which often occur in people
suffering from influenza, were a major cause of death in
the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed at least 50
million people, US scientists said.
Tissue
from American soldiers who died in 1918 and 1919 showed
that in most people the “predominant disease” was
bacterial pneumonia, rather than flu, said Jeffrey
Taubenberger, a pathologist with the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda,
Maryland, who helped write the study.
Countries preparing for emergence of another pandemic
flu strain, which health officials have said is
inevitable, are stockpiling antiviral drugs. Governments
also should be prepared with antibiotics to treat
bacteria that gain easy entry to lungs weakened by the
flu, the researchers said.
RECENT estimates have
placed global mortality in the 1918 and 1919 pandemic at
anywhere between 30 million and 50 million. An estimated
675,000 Americans were among the dead. -- US
OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE HISTORIAN
“Preparations for diagnosing, treating and preventing
bacterial pneumonia should be among highest priorities
in influenza-pandemic planning,” said the authors, who
include NIAID director Anthony Fauci, in a statement.
Viruses
and bacteria are vastly different infectious agents and
respond to distinct classes of drugs. Antibiotics break
down cell walls or disrupt vital processes in
single-celled bacteria, which can feed on tissues and
make poisons.
Flu and
other viruses insert genes into human DNA that cause
cells to make more viruses, rather than carry out normal
functions. Antivirals such as Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu
and GlaxoSmithKline Plc.’s Relenza interfere with those
viral processes.
The 1918
pandemic spread quickly through Armed Forces personnel
and across the world as troops traveled to fight World
War I, researchers have said. The study looked at
preserved tissue from 58 soldiers who died at various
military bases around the US.
At the
time of their deaths, most of the patients were
suffering from severe bacterial pneumonias, the authors
said. The lethal infections were caused by normally mild
bacteria that were allowed to multiply after flu
weakened the body’s defenses, they said.
“In
essence, the virus landed the first blow, while bacteria
delivered the knockout punch,” Fauci said in the
statement.
The
study will be published in the October 1 issue of the
Journal of Infectious Diseases. |
