A deadly strain of flu which was last seen around the time of World War One and killed 10 times as many people, is expected to make an imminent return and desperate measures are being taken to prepare for it.
After a World Health Organisation warning to all countries, scientists are trying to find out why resistance to the strain was so low. In London, a flu victim from the 1918 pandemic is being exhumed in the hope of extracting lung DNA samples.
The body is that of a woman who was buried in an almost air-tight coffin and so should be relatively well preserved. The study of the samples may help in the understanding of the virus before we reach an outbreak peak in the near future.
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