Spanish Flu Inuit

About Spanish Flu Inuit

The 1918 Spanish Flu devastated Indigenous populations globally. In Alaska, some Alaska Native villages were nearly wiped out. In Brevig Mission, an Inupiat village, 72 of about 80 residents died within five days. Bodies were buried in mass graves in the permafrost. In 1997, pathologist Johan Hultin exhumed bodies from the Brevig Mission mass grave with permission from the community. Lung tissue contained intact influenza RNA. Jeffery Taubenberger at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology sequenced the viral genome over 10 years. In 2005, Terrence Tumpey reconstructed the 1918 virus using reverse genetics. The reconstructed virus was lethal in mice and ferrets, confirming the extreme virulence of the 1918 strain. Studies of the reconstructed virus linked its virulence to features of several genes, including the hemagglutinin and polymerase genes. The exhumation and reconstruction work was controversial, raising ethical questions about studying dangerous pathogens. The reconstructed virus is stored at the CDC under high containment.