Visualising regional inequalities in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic in England and Wales

We examine regional inequalities in mortality from the 1918 pandemic in England and Wales. Crude mortality rates (per 100,000 for June 1918 to May 1919) from the Registrar General’s 1920 report were directly allocated to crude mortality rates for 306 administrative units. A custom GIS ShapeFile was constructed to map the rates first as a choropleth and then as a cartogram. The visualisations show a clear north-south divide in mortality in England with the northern areas and – to a lesser extent – the midlands and Wales having higher rates than the south. It also demonstrates an urban-rural divide with more sparsely populated areas – across both England and Wales – having lower rates

Glycosylation Site Alteration in the Evolution of Influenza A (H1N1) Viruses

Influenza virus typically alters protein glycosylation in order to escape immune pressure from hosts and hence to facilitate survival in different host environments. In this study, the patterns and conservation of glycosylation sites on HA and NA of influenza A/H1N1 viruses isolated from various hosts at different time periods were systematically analyzed, by employing a new strategy combining genome-based glycosylation site prediction and 3D modeling of glycoprotein structures, for elucidation of the modes and laws of glycosylation site alteration in the evolution of influenza A/H1N1 viruses. The results showed that influenza H1N1 viruses underwent different alterations of protein glycosylation in different hosts. Two alternative modes of glycosylation site alteration were involved in the evolution of human influenza virus: One was an increase in glycosylation site numbers, which mainly occurred with high frequency in the early stages of evolution. The other was a change in the positional conversion of the glycosylation sites, which was the dominating mode with relatively low frequency in the later evolutionary stages. The mechanisms and possibly biological functions of glycosylation site alteration for the evolution of influenza A/H1N1 viruses were also discussed. Importantly, the significant role of positional alteration of glycosylation sites in the host adaptation of influenza virus was elucidated. Although the results still need to be supported by experimental data, the information here may provide some constructive suggestions for research into the glycosylation of influenza viruses as well as even the design of surveillance and the production of viral vaccines

Threat and Oblivion: Interpreting the Silence Over the Spanish Flu (1918–19)

The Spanish influenza epidemic (1918–19) was the biggest demographic disaster in the 20th century and, for some, the greatest epidemic in human history. Despite its enormous worldwide relevance, until recent years there were few studies on this catastrophe. This silence has been usually understood as the result of the competition with another worldwide event—the Great War. In this chapter, based on a social memory approach, we propose some other interpretations. Firstly, the absence of the flu in collective memory is a way of concealing an event that was experienced as a threat to the existing health services and a failure of the medical science of the time. Secondly, in terms of risk perception, the flu has some attributes that justify its lack of notoriety and normalization. Finally, the lack of collective meaning conferred upon the disease makes it easier to understand how Spanish flu survived in family memories as a traumatic event but not in public, national ones. Overall, this paper illustrates how social and cognitive processes can contribute to the oblivion of a disaster.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio