1334, and which may have lasted for centuries.More recently, the world was turned upside down by the 1889 flu pandemic and the 1918 flu pandemic, sometimes referred to as the “Spanish flu.”The latter resulted from infection with an H1N1 virus that had a genetic structure reminiscent of viruses of avian origin, though its actual source remains unknown.According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the 1918 pandemic, which started to peter out the following year, caused around 40 million deaths globally.As the flu started spreading throughout the world, local governments and newspapers struggled to keep up with the devastation.