The 1968 Hong Kong flu (H3N2) reportedly caused up to 4 million deaths worldwide. It was a pandemic. But what I am going to discuss is the 1997 Hong Kong flu (H5N1). Compared to the 1968 pandemic, the 1997 outbreak is like a footnote to medical historians. However, I would argue that the latter is a chapter worthy of a long hard look.

Typically, the 1997 flu came from an avian virus, which "jumped" to humans from infected poultry. Swift culling resulted in a near-total depopulation of Hong Kong poultry within days. Meanwhile, 6 out of the 18 infected persons died from the flu. Mortality was extremely high but morbidity was extremely low. Still, the sharp asymmetry is not what I put my two cents on. The postmortem reports are my concern.

Two fatalities of the 1997 flu had “edematous brains,” meaning that their brains were swollen. This was a tell-tale sign of heavy infiltrations of white blood cells known as macrophages. In all likelihood, the macrophages had been hot on the heels of the flu which invaded the victims' brains. The macrophages killed the virus, only to turn the brains into collateral damage. This being the case, the 1997 flu outbreak echoed the 1918 flu pandemic. We have good reason to believe that flu could attack human brains. 

Speaking of which, in an earlier piece titled "One Pandemic, Two World Wars," * I made a reference to the weakening of U.S. president Wilson's mental faculty following a flu infection during the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920). Pre-flu Wilson was a dove, holding France back from emasculating Germany. Post-flu Wilson just let hawkish France get away with emasculating Germany, thus sowing the seeds of World War II. 

Flu is not only a flu.

Author: Lingyang Jiang

* https://blog.creaders.net/u/13770/202201/423944.html