“I HAD a little bird, its name was Enza,” went the schoolyard song in 1918. “I opened the window and in-flu-enza.” The 1918 flu pandemic has been the subject of several books, but this is the first I know of from a UK perspective. The science isn’t always current or correct to the last detail, but read this book to understand what happened to a country caught up in both a war and a disease that killed millions worldwide, led by variously competent civil servants whose responses, or lack of them, have some worrying parallels with UK pandemic plans today.…
Living with Enza by Mark Honigsbaum
5 November 2008
