Hong Kong flu

[13] However, due to a lack of etiological information on the outbreak and a strained relationship between Chinese health authorities and those in other countries at the time, it cannot be ascertained whether the Hong Kong virus was to blame.

[13] Before the end of July, the South China Morning Post predicted that "Fingers of scorn" would be directed at Hong Kong in the coming weeks and stated that the colony had "acted, unwillingly, in our old role as an entrepot for a sneeze".

[11] (An outbreak of influenza in Hong Kong had been the first one to occur outside of mainland China during the 1957–1958 pandemic and had been what alerted the rest of the world to the developing situation, when international press began to report on it.

[38] In Berlin, the excessive number of deaths led to corpses being stored in subway tunnels, and in West Germany, garbage collectors had to bury the dead because of a lack of undertakers.

[41] During the second week of September, nearly 2000 participants from 92 countries, including some in southeast Asia where the flu was epidemic, met in Tehran for the Eighth International Congresses on Tropical Medicine and Malaria.

[56][57] As the disease spread throughout the Pacific region and around the world, the Territory's Department of Health took the opportunity to observe the situation in other countries and ensure treatment services were available to respond to outbreaks in rural areas.

[57] At the time, however, the first indication of the seriousness of the outbreak came on 6 October, when the latest field report revealed that over 150 people had died across the Territory during the month of September, 96 in the Southern Highlands alone, with many in remote villages having already been buried.

[59] With the mounting number of deaths, especially in the Highlands, and the extent of the epidemic across the Territory now clear, the Health Department had contacted the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories to discuss the situation.

[76] The Ministerial Member for Public Health, Tore Lokoloko, reported that about 25% of all deaths in that area were of young adults, an unprecedented occurrence in a Territory flu epidemic.

[80] The committee, headed by Lokoloko, would in addition consist of Ian Skinner, Director of Civil Defence; Dr. Alan Tarutia, a specialist in preventive medicine; P. Donaldson, an Administration representative; and H. Stubbs, the president of the Territory Red Cross.

[82] In Lae, Dr. C. Matthews, Medical Superintendent of Angau Memorial Hospital, announced that no special precautions would be taken during the upcoming Morobe Show, to be held from Friday the 24th to Sunday the 26th.

In short, this was due to the low temperatures of the Highland plateaus, malnutrition, the people not seeking medical attention when it could have been provided, and widespread sickness that incapacitated whole families at the same time.

[102][103] The disease began to spread with force in late November 1969, around the time that the Apollo 12 crew returned to Earth; for this reason, some Italians humorously designated the outbreak "the moon flu".

In fact, Italy seems to have been affected even more severely during the winter of 1969–1970 as compared with other European countries during the same period, with excess mortality rates approximately 1-fold higher than those elsewhere in the region.

[27] The first cases of pandemic influenza occurred in Poland in December 1968,[109] though it was not until mid-January 1969 that an outbreak of very high morbidity began among the general population, in contrast to most other European countries during the winter of 1968–1969.

[115] Northern Ireland experienced a moderate outbreak of pandemic influenza in February and March 1969, but morbidity and mortality were both considerably lower than during the last major epidemic in the winter of 1965–1966.

On the whole, the first wave of the pandemic in the United Kingdom was unusually long, lasting over three months, and resulted in no significant demands upon general medical practitioners or hospital services.

[133] Flu-like illness kept other senior governmental officials from their posts around this time, such as National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, Deputy White House Press Secretary Tom Johnson, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Earle Wheeler.

"[137] Peak influenza activity for most states most likely occurred in the latter half of December or early January, but the exact week was impossible to determine due to the holiday season.

[152] In Denmark, the influenza department at the governmental Statens Serum Institut produced about 200,000 doses of pandemic vaccine during the winter of 1968–1969, incorporating a strain isolated in Stockholm.

[153] Millions of doses of vaccine were available in South Africa before its epidemic began at the end of March 1969, which afforded the opportunity to perform "limited studies" of its effectiveness.

[159] In early February, the epidemiology committee of Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council met in Melbourne to discuss the influenza threat and the best use of vaccine the coming winter.

[158][160] A "serious epidemic" was considered the "strongest possibility", and it was recommended to Forbes that older people, children, and pregnant women receive free immunization against the flu.

[165] In response to Representative Gordon Scholes of Victoria, who had heard complaints from chemists unable to acquire vaccine, Forbes clarified that bulk orders from larger establishments would be met first.

[167] Despite these assurances from Forbes, the Director General of the Department of Health William Refshauge sent a letter on 9 April to all doctors in the country asking them not to vaccinate healthy people until at-risk groups in the community have been inoculated.

[168] Two days later, the director of CSL, William R. Lane, dismissed criticism of the supply situation from the New South Wales branch of the Australian Medical Association as "a lot of nonsense".

[69] Charles Barnes, the Minister for External Territories in Australia's House of Representatives, announced this development on 14 October, and CSL commented the following day that the vaccine could save some lives.

[178] The die seemingly cast, the novel variant went on to cause widespread outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere, by which point US press had dubbed the bug "London flu".

[180] Soon after the initial outbreak in Hong Kong, the virus responsible was recognized to be antigenically distinct from the current influenza A strain in circulation (which at the time was called "A2") but was generally not considered an entirely new subtype.

[1] The disease was allowed to spread through the population without restrictions on economic activity, and a vaccine created by American microbiologist Maurice Hilleman and his team became available four months after it had started.