From mass confusion in 1918 to virus detection within hours

WHEN millions of people started dying around the world in 1918, doctors and scientists didn’t have a clue what was happening. As the epidemic spread, it was blamed on everything from tiny plants to dusty books.

Then again, people couldn’t have known otherwise as the influenza virus was only identified in 1933. How times have changed.

Just over a month after people started falling ill in Mexico, experts have identified the culprit to be a novel H1N1 flu virus, which carries genetic material that is mostly swine with the rest being human and avian.