Pandemics disable people — the history that policymakers ignore
Feb 22, 2022
Influenza, polio and more have shown that infections can change lives even decades later. Why the complacency over possible long-term effects of COVID-19?
Consider the ‘mother of all pandemics’ — the 1918 Spanish influenza outbreak. Even in the 1920s, scientists understood that this flu had neurological and other effects. The most notorious and debated of those — still — is the overlapping pandemic of encephalitis lethargica (EL) or ‘sleepy sickness’. Eighty per cent of EL survivors went on to develop a Parkinson’s-like disease. This article is controversial, and we would like to know your thoughts.
