1889–1890 pandemic
The 1889–1890 pandemic, often referred to as the "Asiatic flu" or "Russian flu", was a worldwide respiratory viral pandemic. It was the last great pandemic of the 19th century, and is among the deadliest pandemics in history. The pandemic killed about 1 million people out of a world population of about 1.5 billion (0.067% of population). The most reported effects of the pandemic took place from October 1889 to December 1890, with recurrences in March to June 1891, November 1891 to June 1892, the northern winter of 1893–1894, and early 1895.
| 1889–1890 pandemic | |
|---|---|
The 12 January 1890 edition of the Paris satirical magazine Le Grelot depicted an unfortunate person with influenza bowled along by a parade of physicians, druggists, skeleton musicians, and dancing women representing quinine and antipyrine. | |
| Disease | Influenza or coronavirus disease (uncertain) |
| Virus strain | A/H3N8, A/H2N2, or coronavirus OC43 (uncertain) |
| Location | Worldwide |
| First outbreak | Bukhara, Russian Empire |
| Date | 1889–1890 |
| Suspected cases‡ | 300–900 million (estimate) |
Deaths | 1 million (estimate) |
| ‡Suspected cases have not been confirmed by laboratory tests as being due to this strain, although some other strains may have been ruled out. | |
According to researchers' estimates, excess mortality from Russian influenza in the Russian Empire for the period 1889–1890 could be from 60,000 to 90,000 people, with lethality from the virus, a little more than 0.2%.
Although contemporaries described the pandemic as influenza and 20th-century scholars identified several influenza strains as the possible pathogen, several authors from the early 2020s suggest that it may have been caused by human coronavirus OC43.