Shades of 1918

Haaretz has the latest on an epidemic of pneumonia among Israeli military recruits. The Spanish Flu also began as a mysterious, deadly pneumonia at American boot camps. ProMED-mail suggests a diagnosis of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Of course they'd tell us if bird flu were involved...

The Allies of World War I frequently called it the "Spanish Flu". This was mainly because the pandemic received greater press attention in Spain than in the rest of the world, because Spain was not involved in the war and there was no wartime censorship. [--Wikipedia]