How an Alaska village grave led to a Spanish flu breakthrough

The Alaska village of Brevig Mission, the residents of which allowed a breakthrough in developing a vaccine for the Spanish flu of 1918. (Photo by Ned Rozell)

One hundred and two years ago, a strain of influenza virus spread across the globe, eventually reaching Brevig Mission in Alaska. Five days after the flu hit the Seward Peninsula, 72 of the 80 villagers in Brevig Mission were dead.

Through a series of events suited to a detective novel, researchers made a connection between Brevig Mission and the flu virus that helped prevent another outbreak of the 1918 flu, one of the worst epidemics ever experienced.

The 1918 flu, which infected 28 percent of people in the United States, killed 675,000 Americans. More than 20 million people died worldwide, most of them young adults.

Johan Hultin made it a personal mission to find a sample of the 1918 virus he calls “the most lethal organism in the history of man.”

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