Spanish Influenza - New Zealand's Worst Disaster

Most people survive the flu. It's not much fun but we live. The flu brings a headache, a blocked nose, a high temperature and dizziness and then we get better. That's how the flu works.

There was a time when the flu did kill. It was 1918 and it swept through the world. Strong people were bowled over and the deadly little virus found its way to Taranaki. This week's story tells you more. It's scary stuff!

A poem from the times

I had a little bird
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window,
And in-flu-enza

Rewind

What was happening in 1918? Decide whether these things are true or false. You can check your answers at the end of this week's TreasureLink.

1. Young New Zealanders continue to fight in a war.

2. New Zealanders will celebrate a great event in towns across New Zealand.

3. Women can stand for Parliament for the first time.

4. The All Blacks will soon go on their first tour to Britain.

5. New Zealand exports its first dried milk to Britain.

Answers at the bottom of the page.

Fair to say?

This photo shows a little of the life and times of this week's story. It was taken in 1920, just two years after the influenza epidemic.

Pair up with a classmate, study the photo and decide the following.

 Would it be fair to say that compared to now:

• Most businesses employed far more people
• The horse and cart was a more popular form of transport
• Electricity was just as popular
• An ambulance would have taken longer to reach a patient
• People enjoyed socialising over a few beers just as many people do now.

Sneezin' season

Find out about the influenza virus. Just match a "What" to a "Why"

What?

1. If you are hit by a flu virus your immune system won't recognize it.

2. Children are the most likely to catch the flu but older people are the most at risk.

3. People call colds and sniffles flu but a cold isn't really the flu.

4. Influenza spreads by infected droplets sneaking into our nose and mouth.

Why?

a. Cold viruses give you colds and flu viruses give you flu. Flu makes you quite sick. You won't make it to school.

b. That's because the virus is the latest one out. Your system has never come across it before.

c. The immune system in an older person is weaker and it can't fight the viruses as well as a younger person's can.

d. Sneezing, talking and coughing propels tiny aerosol droplets into the air. One sneeze can blast thousands of cold viruses onto tables or door knobs and they can survive in their protective coats for hours.

Battle stations

Here's how your body fights the flu. Later, when you read the story, think about the parts that didn't work so well in 1918.

The defenders

Your body has an army of them. Body hairs brush nasties away before they hit the skin. Sticky mucus in your nose traps germs and spits them out when you cough or sneeze. Tiny hairs called cilia sweep mucus out of your airways while roving chemicals and special cells pounce on invaders and remember and destroy enemies.

The invaders

Flu viruses sidestep protective cilia and their protein spikes are attracted to the tissue cells lining your airways. The viruses hijack your cellular machinery and start to multiply. The copies invade other cells and make more copies and your throat starts to swell and hurt!

The eliminators

You body fights back! Chemical messages from the infected cells tell the healthy cells to fight. White blood cells swallow up the invaders. More signals raise the body's temperature and the virus activity slows down.

The reinforcements

Another signal tells the white cells to multiply and launch an attack. One group destroys the virus copying cells and another travels to the bloodstream to disarm free viruses. You feel this battle with a sore throat, runny nose, coughing and swollen glands. You have the flu!

Word watch

You'll find all the words below in this week's story. Decide whether the best meaning is (a) or (b) and then check your answers as you read the story.

1. morgue (a) a place where dead bodies are kept before they are claimed for burial or cremation or (b) a graveyard

2. potent (a)deadly or (b) powerful

3. unconsciousness (a) knocked out or (b)very sleepy

4. cadavers (a) dead bodies or (b) very sick people

5. epidemic (a) the type of infection that always affects people all over the world or (b) an infection that affects many different people at the same time

6. feverish (a) burning or (b) unsettled

7. fumigating (a) to use smoke or fumes to disinfect or (b) to smell for germs

8. dosed (a) soak someone in a bath of disinfectant or (b) to give someone medicine

9. convalescent (a) the time needed for returning to health after illness or (b) the time when an illness is at its worst

10. immunological (a) a very dangerous virus or (b) something to do with a person's immune system.

Answers at the bottom of the page.

He's alive!

This week's story grabs your interest from the first sentence!  "The still body... Read on through to "A true survivor."  Click here to see the story.

Imagine being left for dead in a morgue. What would Michael have said a few years later when he was older and cheekier. You decide by filling in Michael's part in this quick play.

Doctor Well Michael my boy. You look a lot better than the last time I saw you.

Michael

Rose (Michael's mother)  It was very lucky Mrs Hathhurst found you Michael. You were a very lucky little boy.

Michael

Mrs Hathhurst There you were Michael among all those dead people and suddenly I saw you move. You gave me such a fright.

Michael

Jean (Michael's sister) Trust you to move Michael. You never do what everyone else is doing.

Michael

Vincent (Michael's dad) Well it's a pity you did get sick Michael. If you had stayed well you could have helped me milk everyone's cows.

Jean I don't think he was that sick dad. I think he was just having a big sleep when they carted him off to the morgue.

Michael

Vincent  Enough of that cheek Michael. Pour the good doctor another cup of tea and then bring in the cows. Smarten up lad. You look half dead!

I feel sick!

Read "A true survivor" and find out how Michael made the most of his brush with death.

Pair up with a classmate and list some jobs from these times that Michael probably tried to get out of.

Family fights flu

Read the next three parts of the story through to "Victory spreads virus" and find out if all of the Dravitski family survived.

Check out the family portrait and write speech or thought bubbles to match some of the family members. Try to show through your speech bubbles how this epidemic changed people's lives.

Want a spray?

"Victory spreads virus" tells you just how many people this virus killed. Read on now through to "Expected to die" and find out:

• why gathering for victory celebrations was unwise
• why people were fumigated
• if the virus attacked people quickly
• if the virus affected the old and weak more than the young and strong

Sad movies

People's lives changed when the influenza virus hit communities. Gathering in places like movie theatres became dangerous. The virus was passed from person to person just as cold and flu viruses are today. The story tells us that schools, movie theatres and shops were closed all over New Zealand and the photos below show what else was done to help people beat the virus.

Each photo below shows an action put in place to help people. Pair up with a classmate and decide first why it's a good idea and then why it might not be so good after all. Share your ideas with another pair.

• Photo 1 Click here
• Photo 2 Click here
• Photo 3 Click here

Parade blues

Celebrating the end of the war was another dangerous exercise because it brought people together and increased the chances of catching the flu. Read the part in the story called "Expected to die" and then draw yourself a 24 hour clock.

Colour the hours green that you spent alone yesterday. (This would be safe time in the influenza days as long as the virus wasn't lurking on things like door knobs.)

Colour the hours orange that you spent with a 5 or less people. (Not quite as safe.)

Colour the hours red that you spent with 6 or more people. (Now there is more chance of the virus being passed on.)

What if yesterday was a day in 1918 and you were there? Would the day have been highly dangerous for you, quite dangerous or reasonably safe? Compare your findings with others in the class.

What if a virus like that was around today? Which parts of your day would you eliminate?

Breath deeply

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

The inhalation chamber was another weapon in the fight against the flu. Read "Hawera falls overnight,"  to find out how it worked and whether it worked very well.

Quickly read through "Sneezin' season" above and then look closely at the photo again. Now that you know a little more about viruses decide whether you would have visited the inhalation chamber. Check with a classmate and see if they share your opinion.

Dear diary

Finish the story now and look for more things that people did to help the ones that were struck down.

Write some diary entries for three different people that lived through these times. A doctor, a child and a volunteer. Think carefully about what they might have written in their diaries to give others a clear picture of life in Taranaki during the year of the great influenza epidemic.

Fast forward to 2004

Did you know?

• Cold and flu viruses cause more people to take time off work and school than any other illness.
• Most adults catch between two to three colds a year.
• Annual flu outbreaks are our most costly plague. They cost millions of dollars in hospital time.

Another time another illness

Public health nurses are beginning to vaccinate school children against the deadly meningococcal disease. Medical clinics and other health providers will have the vaccine for children under five and those not attending school.

Meningococcal disease is a serious infection caused by bacteria. It can infect the bloodstream or lead to meningitis, the swelling of the membranes and fluid that cover the brain and the spinal cord.

Meningococcal disease can be difficult to tell from other illnesses such as influenza because some of the symptoms such as a headache and achy limbs are similar. But meningococcal disease gets worse very quickly and it needs urgent medical care and antibiotics.

People can carry the meningococcal bacteria harmlessly in the back of their throat and nose without getting sick. It's spread in droplet form - for example through coughing, kissing, or sharing food and drink. It's not highly contagious like chicken pox but about 400 New Zealanders become sick with the disease each year and about 16 die.

The vaccine is made from a tiny part of the germ. The body knows it shouldn't be there and develops immunity just as if it was exposed to the whole bug.

More than half the victims of meningococcal disease are under five years old and babies are most at risk because their immune system is still developing.

Vaccination plan

This vaccine has only just been approved and it will take some time to make all the vaccine the country needs. Teenagers who have left school are not due to get immunized until February and those over 20 won't be able to get it at all.

Form a group of three. What if you were in charge of organising the vaccination programme for New Zealand?

1. Identify the problem to be solved and write it down as a question.

2. List some possible solutions.

3. List some outcomes or consequences for each of your solutions.

4. Share your ideas with another group. 

Answers

Rewind

1. True. The armistice ending the war was signed at 11 am on 11 November.

2. True.  New Zealanders partied on with end of war victory celebrations that lasted well into the night.

3. False. Women didn't get the vote until 1919.

4. False. The All Blacks toured Britain for the first time in 1905.

5. True.

Click to go back to the questions.

Click to go back to the questions.