Scientists recently expressed suspicion that a mysterious respiratory illness called the Russian flu may have been caused by a pandemic coronavirus akin to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that's causing COVID-19.
A ScienceAlert report said that in the late 1880s, specifically in 1889, "Russian flu emerged" and then transmitted throughout the world, stimulating at least three waves of infection over the course of many years.
There are some easily drawn matches between the two pandemics. For example, workplaces and schools shut down during the Russian flu pandemic because of the huge number of people infected.
People who were infected typically lost their senses of smell and taste, and some were able to endure long-lasting symptoms that stayed for months.
Russian Flu
Russian flu, in general, appeared to claim the lives of far more elderly individuals than children, unlike other influenza or flu viruses which tend to be, in the same way, deadly to both age groups, as indicated in the available historical records, including newspapers, journal articles, and general health records.
According to flu researcher and medicine professor Peter Palese at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, while such characteristics of the Russian flu pandemic strangely resemble those of the present pandemic, the notion is that the Russian flu is the Russian flu might have resulted from a coronavirus stays speculative.
Meanwhile, some experts resonated with this sentiment, although others said they suspect that even though there may be hard evidence to support the idea, it just has not been discovered yet.
Chief of the viral pathogenesis and evolution section, Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger, at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, and emeritus professor of virology John Oxford at Queen Mary, University of London are in search for such evidence.
Identifying the Mysterious Russian Flu Among Tissue Samples from the 1918 Flu Pandemic
They have been digging through preserved lung tissue specimens predating the 1918 flu pandemic, searching for remnants of influenza viruses and coronaviruses. Among such tissue samples, they hope to identify the mysterious Russian flu virus.
The New York Times report said that professor of global health and social medicine Dr. Scott Podolsky at Harvard Medical School, and curator Dominic Hall from the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard, are also searching for preserved lung tissue from the same period.
Suppose the genetic material coming from the Russian flu virus turns up in the lung tissues. In that case, it may provide clues as to how the pandemic ended, as media coverage from the time provides little understanding.
More so, if a coronavirus caused this pandemic in the late 19th century, some researchers think that but may have remained circulating as one of the four coronavirus types that cause the common cold instead of severe disease.
Similarity with COVID-19
According to Harald Bruessow, a retired Swiss microbiologist and editor of the Microbial Biotechnology journal, like COVID-19, the Russian flu appears to have favorably claimed the lives of older individuals and not children.
Virginia Tech's Tom Ewing, one of the few historians who has studied the Russian flu and examined 1890 records from the State Board of Health in Connecticut, discovered a similar pattern.
If verified true, that would then make the 1890 virus, unlike flu viruses killing the very young and the very old.
Historical records cannot readily provide an answer to the question of coronavirus indeed caused the 1889 Russian Flu, which was investigated in a paper published in Microbial Biotechnology.
Related information about the Russian flu and coronavirus is explained on Anuja Mathew's YouTube video below:
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