Well Said

A century ago, the 1918 influenza outbreak wreaked havoc in Chapel Hill, across North Carolina and around the world. There were as many as 50 million deaths — about 3 percent of the world’s population at that time. In this week’s episode, UNC School of Medicine professor Ralph Baric discusses the impact of 1918 flu and the developments we’ve seen in 100 years to respond to the next outbreak. He also explains why this has been a particularly bad flu season. To mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918 flu – and to assess the threat that an outbreak of this scale poses today – the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and its partners will host an interdisciplinary symposium from April 4-6 titled “Going Viral: Impact and Implications of the 1918 Influenza Flu Pandemic.”