Seasonal flu virus H1N1 may be a direct descendant of the 1918 influenza strain that caused a global pandemic, according to a new study that sheds more light on the evolution of the virus.
The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, assessed the genome of virus samples that were collected in Europe during the 1918 pandemic, which took the lives of 50 million to 100 million people worldwide.
Historical and medical records suggest the pandemic peaked in the autumn of 1918 and continued through to winter 1919.
