is H1N1 connected to the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918?

Since medicine has made so many advances since 1918, I would count on the swine flu not being as bad as the Spanish flu. However, it's just so strange how it hits some people. There is a case in my city for example. A brother and sister (brother 10, sister 7) both in perfect health got the swine flu. She recovered quickly, but he ended up in intensive care! He spent ten days in ICU before being discharged yesterday. It's crazy.

I hadn't heard that the Flu was endemic in pigs since that 1918 outbreak..Influenza will "evolve" as it passes around the population from one to another..slight differences will creep in as time goes on. Medicine too is evolving,so that treatments can be produced faster. The 1918 variant travelled maybe more slowly then,as Intercontinental air travel hadn't yet caught on to the extent that it has done today..Ships were still the mainstay of transoceanic travel..H1N1's lethality is debated..as "Regular" flu has killed thousands of susceptible people in other outbreaks,H1N1 has killed relatively few,but it does have a better publicity machine going for it in this internet age..

I think what you've read may have been a bit muddled up by the sounds of it. As far as I'm aware the way it works is that the H1N1 virus is a mixture of human flu and Porcine flu. The reason it's a mix is because humans work with pigs and when both have virues at the same time these can sometimes get mixed up together. Normally when this happens the virus that is created gets passed from the pig to the human, but can't be passed from human to human. This particular virus CAN be passed from human to human making it quite rare. As to the connection to the 1918 'spanish flu' yes, that was also an H1N1 virus, but one which is thought now to have been much stronger than the one that we're experiencing now. However, when this one first began, people were very worried that it might kill thousands like the 1918 one did, which is why there has been so much in the media about it.

I really don't know what to think about this particular flu...there is SOOOO much information being passed around right now...what is true, what is NOT, I think is up to the individual. A media hype here is that if you were born before 1952, you more than likely have a para-immunity as there was another "swine" flu previous to that time. In Canada, the province of B.C., so far is hardest hit, 13 deaths in the last 10 days, 9 of which were healthy young women. I am beginning to think "swine flu" is a misnomer as it was found in a TURKEY farm in Ontario! How does one sort out the hype from the truth? Cheers!