The acting U.S. Army Surgeon General calculated that if the pandemic continued its mathematical rate of acceleration-it soon could spell the end of humankind. But then, as silently, as mysteriously, as quickly as it came, the virus vanished. When the pandemic eventually waned, it was soon pushed off the front pages.and out of the public imagination. Today, it's largely forgotten. Perhaps more than any other epidemic, the Spanish flu episode illustrates that diseases spread across borders of culture, language and territory.
Diseases can destabilize governments, and destroy fragile communities and economies.
Above all, the Spanish flu taught us that there can be no international security without international health security. Because infectious diseases recognize no borders, in our fight against them, neither can we. The only way that we can get infectious diseases to exit the world stage is if governments, world health organizations, the private sector and academia work together to attack them with a global strategy. Because we all share a common future, we must stand on common ground. And because, as we've seen time and time again, when we do work together-we win.