Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom.
Vaccine. 2011 Jul 22;29 Suppl 2:B11-5. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.03.063.
This paper describes British efforts to map the Russian influenza outbreaks of the early 1890s and describe the timing and course of the epidemic waves. Drawing on two surveys conducted by Britain's Local Government Board (LGB), the paper shows how, in a pre-virological era, the board was able to establish that influenza was an intensely infectious disease. Its key observation, however, was that Russian influenza had taken the form of three, and possibly four, distinct waves of infection, with the second wave in the spring of 1891 proving more lethal than the first wave, and the third wave in the winter of 1892 proving almost as lethal again. Most of this mortality was due to excess deaths from respiratory disease, particularly in the middle age ranges, but while these insights could and, arguably, should have aided the public health response, British health authorities preferred to advocate cautious preventive measures that did little to alleviate the pandemic's impact. The policy would prove especially costly in 1918-1919 when the LGB missed the opportunity to provide extra nursing cover for influenza convalescents following the initial summer wave of the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic.
本文描述了英国在 19 世纪 90 年代早期对俄罗斯流感爆发的测绘工作，并描述了疫情波的时间和进程。本文利用英国地方政府委员会（LGB）进行的两项调查，表明在病毒学时代之前，该委员会是如何确定流感是一种极具传染性的疾病的。然而，其关键观察结果是，俄罗斯流感呈现出三波，甚至可能是四波不同的感染波，1891 年春季的第二波比第一波更致命，1892 年冬季的第三波再次致命。大部分死亡归因于呼吸道疾病的超额死亡，特别是在中年人群中，但尽管这些见解本可以而且可以说应该有助于公共卫生应对，但英国卫生当局更倾向于提倡谨慎的预防措施，这些措施几乎没有减轻大流行的影响。当 LGB 错过为 1918 年西班牙流感大流行的最初夏季波之后的流感康复者提供额外护理人员的机会时，该政策在 1918-1919 年将特别昂贵。
