‘That Terrible Time’: Reflections on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in New Zealand

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‘That Terrible Time’: Reflections on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in New Zealand

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Vanessa Weenink

NZMJ
Influenza. Be Prepared.
New Zealand Doctor cover image from 2005

This year marks the centenary of the ‘Spanish’ influenza pandemic of 1918, in which at least 9,000 New Zealanders died in less than two months. Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Canterbury Geoffrey W Rice reflects on the ‘Black Flu’ in the latest issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal

The report in this issue on the 4th New Zealand Influenza Symposium1 held in Wellington in February this year is a timely reminder of this country’s g
References

1. Charania N, Turner N. 100 years since the 1918 influenza pandemic—progress made, yet questions remain. A synopsis of the 4th New Zealand Influenza Symposium, February 2018. N Z Med J 2018; 131(1481):50–55.

2. Spinney L. Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World. New York: Public Affairs. 2017.
New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan: A Framework for Action. Wellington: Ministry of Health. 2017.

3. Rice GW. Black November. The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in New Zealand. Wellington, 1988; second enlarged edition Christchurch: Canterbury University Press. 2005.

4. Rice GW. Black Flu 1918. The Story of New Zealand’s Worst Public Health Disaster. Christchurch: Canterbury University Press. 2017.

5. Rice GW. Death Records for an Indigenous Population from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: New Zealand Maori. Conference paper delivered at an international seminar on the 1918 Spanish Influenza, Madrid, Spain, November 2017, organised by the IUSSP Historical Demography Panel, Spanish National Research Council, Fogarty Centre of National Institute of Health, USA, and University of Castilla-La Mancha.

6. Rice GW. Why did Wellington suffer nearly double the death rate of Christchurch in the 1918 influenza pandemic? The Jim Gardner Memorial Lecture 2018. Christchurch: Canterbury History Foundation. 2018. ISSN 1176-0443.

7. Kobasa D, Jones SM, Shinya K, et al. Aberrant innate immune response in lethal infection of macaques with the 1918 influenza virus. Nature. 2007; 445:319323.

8. Gagnon A, Miller MS, Hallman SA, et al. Age-specific mortality during the 1918 influenza pandemic: unravelling the mystery of high young adult mortality. PLOS One. 2013; 8(8):e69586.

9. Shanks GD, Brundage JF. Pathogenic responses among young adults during the 1918 influenza pandemic. EID. 2012;18(2); 2017.

10. Wilson N, Oliver J, Rice G, Summers JA, Baker MG, Waller M, Shanks GD. Age-specific mortality during the 1918–19 influenza pandemic and possible relationship to the 1889–92 influenza pandemic. JID. 2014; 210:9935.

12. Rice GW. Influenza in New Zealand before 1918. Am J Epidemiol. 2018. Accepted, forthcoming.

13. Shanks GD. Insights from unusual aspects of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Trav Med & Inf Dis. 2015; 13:217222.