Between forgetting and remembering

The so-called Spanish flu was a traumatic experience for the population as a whole, and a challenge for medicine and health professionals, with an impact which lasted beyond the years of the pandemic. It played a decisive role in promoting the establishment of the World Health Organization Influenza Control Programme, supported by the creation of the World Influenza Centre (London) and a network of regional and national laboratories to deal with it. This network, a model for other pathologies (Porras Gallo, 2020), is still the key to monitoring the circulation of influenza viruses, detecting relevant changes, and deciding the composition of annual influenza vaccines. However, the interest of historians in this pandemic is relatively recent. It was overshadowed by the attention given to the First World War, acquired prominence during certain subsequent health crises and, above all, with the emergence of aids and the questioning of the end of infectious diseases

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Cognitive psychology · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) · Forgetting · Infectious disease (medical specialty) · Outbreak · Pandemic · Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) · Health and Conflict Studies · Internal Medicine · Medicine · Psychology · Virology