The 1918 flu was one of the deadliest pandemics in history, killing at least 50 million people worldwide. It was long believed that young, healthy adults were just as likely to die from the illness as those who were older, sick or frail — but a new study has turned this idea on its head.
"Even in a novel pandemic — one to which no one is supposed to have prior immunity — certain people are at a greater risk of getting sick and dying, and this is often shaped by culture," Amanda Wissler, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of anthropology at McMaster University in Ontario, told Live Science in an email. In other words, people who are already disadvantaged in terms of their health or socioeconomic status tend to be more vulnerable to outbreaks, she said.
People who had active shinbone lesions were considered the frailest, and compared with people with healed lesions, they were more likely to die before and during the pandemic. During the pandemic, their risk of death was 2.7 times greater than that of people who had healed lesions.