Fact check: did vaccinated only die from Spanish flu?

In mid-November, a user shared a photo on Facebook, saying “Spanish flu in 1918: only vaccinated people died”. Now that we are nearing the approval of the first Covid-19 vaccines that have passed clinical trials and proven their efficacy and safety, there is still an active dissemination of misleading information about vaccination as such on social media. This claim about H1N1, or the so-called Spanish flu, from which only vaccinated people died, is also false.

The Spanish flu was the deadliest flu pandemic of the past century, killing millions of people in the few years since the end of World War I. Estimates vary from different sources, with the most common range being between 20 and 50 million fatalities.

It should be remembered that at that time, doctors had no idea about the composition of letters such as H1N1, and the perception of the cause of the disease was incorrect. Many health care professionals at the time thought that the cause of the disease was a bacterium (Haemophilus influenzae, hemophilic wand or Pfeifer wand) rather than the virus. At the time, there were also no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections in those with the flu.

However, at the beginning of the 20th century, some vaccines already existed, such as the smallpox vaccine, which dates from the late 18th century, or the 19th century vaccines against cholera, typhus and rabies. However, we can speak of the first flu vaccines only in the 1940s. At a time when the so-called Spanish flu “raged” around the world, there was no flu vaccine. There were also no specific medications or therapies to help already infected people.

Therefore, the claim that only the vaccinated died from the so-called Spanish flu is incorrect.

Similar misleading claims have been circulating on the web in various languages ​​since spring, and judging by the date, first and last name shown at the bottom of the image of the particular entry, this too is a republication. This and other false claims about the association of Spanish flu with vaccination have also been refuted by international verifiers such as Reuters and the Poynter network of verifiers.