Researchers recently located graves of seven flu victims who were buried in 1918 north of the Arctic Circle, on a Norwegian island. They plan to open the graves and collect tissue samples. The permafrost may have preserved the tissues well enough so that the virus can be studied. Learning about the 1918 flu virus could greatly reduce the risk of a new epidemic. There is also a risk of inadvertently turning the virus loose once again.
Flu viruses have a high mutation rate and evolve much more rapidly than higher plants and animals.
The disease is most common in the fall, and each year the virus may be different. Early each spring researchers make their best prediction and start working, in order to have sufficient quantity of vaccine for the fall. If the prediction is accurate, the vaccine will be effective. But there is concern, because this new virus may be able to spread directly from birds to humans, and then from human to human. If the presence of pigs is not required, that would greatly enlarge the possibility of an epidemic.