From there it spreads to the Philippines in September 1830, to Indonesia in January 1831, through the Malay peninsula and into Asia in 1832. By November it reaches the United States, and continues to spread in 1832. Named the Russian flu, this worldwide influenza epidemic, the most devastating to that time, begins in Central Asia in the summer of 1889, spreads north into Russia, east to China and west to Europe. It eventually strikes North America, parts of Africa and major Pacific Rim countries. Its spread is facilitated by troop movements in the closing months of the war.
Mortality rates are unusually high for flu, especially among young, otherwise healthy adults.
The Asian flu starts in southwest China in February 1957, possibly having originated in 1956 in Vladivostok, Russia, then spreads throughout the Pacific. Globally it affects 10 percent to 35 percent of the population, but overall mortality is much lower than in the 1918 epidemic, about 0.25 percent. The Swine flu, isolated in New Jersey in a young army recruit, instills fear of a new pandemic and leads to a massive influenza-immunization program. The vaccinations lead to Guillain-Barre syndrome, an ascending paralysis, in 100,000 people and kills 5 percent of those afflicted.