Spanish Flu survivor defeats Covid-19

A CENTENARIAN man (106 year old) from Delhi, who was four years old during the 1918 Spanish Flu, has survived Covid-19 and recovered faster than his son, in his 70s, at a dedicated coronavirus facility here, doctors said.

The 106-year-old patient was discharged from the Rajiv Gandhi

Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH) recently after recovering, where his wife, son and another family member also recuperated after contracting the novel coronavirus infection, they said.

‘Perhaps, he is the first reported case of Covid-19 in Delhi who also went through the dreaded Spanish

Flu pandemic of 1918 which like Covid-19 had also ravaged the world. And, he not only recovered from COVID-19, he recovered faster than his son, who is also very old,’ a senior doctor. Spanish Flu was a pandemic which hit the world 102 years ago, and affected nearly one-third of the global population at that time. ‘The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 19181919,’ according to CDC in the US.