They believe the virus, which claimed the lives of up to 50m people around the world, jumped from birds to humans.
The breakthrough, published in Science, should help doctors identify which future bird viruses pose a threat to man at an earlier stage.
But the National Institute for Medical Research team warns viruses cannot be stopped from crossing between species.
They also say their work is unlikely to aid the current fight against avian flu in the Far East as knowing the structure of a virus is not enough to block its progress.
The key first stage of infection is for the flu virus to attach itself to the cells in which it will breed.
It does this by using spike-like molecules called Hemagglutinins (HA) that bind to particular receptors on the surface of cells in the body.
Human and bird virus HAs interact with different cell receptors and therefore bird viruses do not usually infect humans.
However, the NIMR team has studied the HA of the 1918 virus in close detail, and found that only minor changes in its structure were required for it to start to bind with human cells as well as bird cells.
This gave it the ability to pass from birds to humans, and then between humans - with devastating results.
3D structure
The researchers examined samples of the 1918 virus using a technique called X-ray crystallography. This enabled them to determine the three-dimensional structure of its HA.
It seems part of the reason that the 1918 virus wreaked such devastation was because the changes required to pose a threat to humans were so small - smaller than those which made similar species-jumping viruses deadly in 1957 and 1968.
Lead researcher Sir John Skehel said the findings would enable scientists to track and monitor the changes in flu viruses.
However, scientists would not be able to predict the form future versions of the virus would take or prevent their formation, he said.
Sir John told BBC News Online: "This research should help improve surveillance.
"If we find that the structure of a bird virus resembles that of the structure of the 1918 virus that we have determined, then we will know that it potentially poses a threat to man, and it will have to be kept under more active surveillance than usual.
"However, our research will not have an immediate impact on the situation currently unfolding in the Far East with the chicken flu known as H5, since, from our previous work, we know that the 1918 and the H5 Hemagglutinins are quite different."
Huge death toll
The 1918 "Spanish" flu pandemic is estimated to have infected up to one billion people - half the world's population at the time.
The virus killed more people than any other single outbreak of disease, surpassing even the Black Death of the Middle Ages.
Although it probably originated in the Far East, it was dubbed "Spanish" flu because the press in Spain - not being involved in the Great War - were the first to report extensively on its impact.
The virus caused three waves of disease. The second of these, between September and December 1918, resulting in the heaviest loss of life.
It is thought that the virus may have played a role in ending the Great War as soldiers were too sick to fight, and by that stage more men on both sides died of flu than were killed by weapons.
Although most people who were infected with the virus recovered within a week following bed rest, some died within 24 hours of infection.
Source: BBC News
8 comments:
the new is¨influenza porcina¨ .that has caused a social estrees because of this because people are suggestible and go to the hospital, saying that they have the common symptoms of influenza and current.
There will be no classes until May 6 and one teacher told :they are not vacations, are days of opportunity (jaja).
Well, now that I have read this post, I can say that I haven´t known about this 1918 killer flu but it´s interesting because right now we are having something similar.
Years ago, people used to die quickly because of lack of attention and because there wasn´t the enough technology to identify flus like these.
But we are lucky of having medicine and more information for anticipating this epidemic.
Much information has been published on this topic.
I think that it´s reasonable to believe that viruses such as living entities tend to evolution, perhaps derived from seasonal issues, the environment that man is largely responsible. One may think of the possibility of a scientific error to achieve isolate the virus, which made it possible to transmit from man to man.
It´s known that man has developed the technology that in those years did not have, the people of those years weren´t aware as we´re today and we know that with simples care we can protect us.
It isn´t blindly trust what the media tell us, but if you know and see how can protect us, while we doing our normal lives.
Frine Montes
i didn`t know so much about this topic, and now i realize that there`s a lot of diferent kind of flu, and its interesting to read about those secrets revealed just almost a century ago, the bird flu kill a lot of inoccent people, at the same time we have now a similiar kind of problem here in Mexico, bout in this days is more difficult that a flu could kill a lot of people like a years ago.
Estefania Payns Villalobos
I don´t know nothing about this kind of problem, but is interesting the text, y I´d like read more about this, but with this information only can say that, in the world exist too many unknown epidemics and diseases, which are fatal, such as influenza in these days that is invading the world.
im really don´t know nothing about this of the killer flu of 1918 but i thing is very important to know about this kind of epidemics. and now we have the influenzia but i hope this epidemic not go so far in mexico or in the world.
:D
Since year ago, the people has dead for many apidemic, but nowdays the governments are more prepared y the science is more developed.
However, a epidemic always causes difficult moments among the population
Francisco J. Córdova
good swine influenza is a virus that we do not know the truth that is all a lie from the government to do something.
But this is a very complicated viruses that if there is a vaccine every 10 years will be obsolete because the virus mutates every 10 years and is becoming stronger
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