Doctor Hultin sent samples from four Breving Mission victims to the AFIP in guanidinium thiocyanate, a solution that preserves genetic material while inactivating any live organisms. One of the four victims' samples yielded genetic material of the 1918 virus. The AFIP archives were the source of the first case to provide a direct look at the virus, as reported in the journal Science in March 1997. While the RNA, the genetic material of the virus, is fragmented into tiny pieces in all three cases, molecular techniques can be used to identify complete gene structures. All three cases are from victims of the lethal fall wave of the pandemic.
Available records indicate that all three victims died within a week of infection.
Determining the genetic structure of the virus may shed light on the exceptional lethality of the flu, and contribute to the understanding of newly emerging influenza virus strains. A report released on February 15 by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicated that researchers have completely analyzed a critical gene from the 1919 influenza virus and have determined that the virus may have percolated for several years within humans, and perhaps pigs, until it grew strong enough to become the world's worst influenza pandemic. Reid and her team were studying lung tissue preserved from the autopsies of two soldiers and an Alaskan woman who died from influenza. One of the soldiers had been stationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and the other at Camp Upton, New York. Through this investigation, Reid was able to map a gene called the hemagglutinin, which is key to allowing the influenza virus to take hold.