Original version

BBC World Service Online

The Documentary

Documentaries

Factual

The Documentary Podcast

Investigating global developments, issues and affairs.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

The Documentary: Pandemic: The Story of the 1918 Flu

Flu Treatment Tents of 1918

13/01/2018 GMT

Pandemic: The Story of the 1918 Flu

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Pandemic: The Story of the 1918 Flu

How the flu pandemic of 100 years ago affected every corner of the world

How the flu pandemic of 100 years ago affected every corner of the world.

As the world battles the coronavirus pandemic, Professor John Oxford, one of the world’s leading virologists, examines how the last truly global pandemic affected every corner of the world.

It’s estimated between 50 and 100 million people died in three outbreaks of the so-called ‘Spanish Flu’ which hit in 1918 and 1919. It remains the most devastating pandemic in modern history and to this day, scientists are still trying to pinpoint its origins.

More people died than perished in World War One and Two combined. It even killed more than the bubonic plague, yet in many parts of the world it is virtually forgotten. But now the story of 1918/19 pandemic is more relevant than ever!

We hear how otherwise healthy soldiers returning safely from war would be dead within three or four days, how whole families would be wiped out in a week and how the authorities in different parts of the world struggled to cope with looking after the sick and burying their dead on such a huge scale.

The deadly flu was different but yet similar to the coronavirus in the way it affected the respiratory system. People would turn blue or purple and often succumb to pneumonia in a time before the discovery of antibiotics. Many nurses and doctors became part of the death toll.

John looks through the archives and traces its emergence and spread through every continent. We hear real and dramatized testimony from people who lived through it in countries like South Africa, Britain, France, Germany, America and New Zealand.

He presents his own hypothesis, gleaned from years of work in the area on where it may have begun and brings things up to date with his verdict on what lessons we can learn from history as we continue to fight the first truly global pandemic in 100 years. 
Producer: Ashley Byrne

(Photo: Nurses care for victims of an influenza epidemic outdoors amidst canvas tents during an outdoor fresh air cure in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1918. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Documentary

Pandemic: The Story of the 1918 Flu

Genres

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service