PLAGUE HUNTERS
See how doctors are using forensic science to track a silent killer.
Called the Spanish Flu, it was the single deadliest viral outbreak of all time.
It began at the end of the First World War, when soldiers from around the world were returning home after five years of bloodshed.
They unknowingly brought with them a virus that would soon kill 40 million people – more than had died in the entire war.
Unlike most flus, ‘the Spanish Lady’ preyed not on the old and infirm but on the young and healthy.
In Plague Hunters, we join two teams of scientists as they race to find, identify, and reconstruct the DNA of history’s most lethal plague. Only by reconstructing the virus can scientists hope to create a vaccine to combat if and when it returns.