Asian flu

American  

Pathology.

1. a form of epidemic influenza caused by a virus believed to have been carried from Asia in the late 1950s.

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Asian flu British  

noun

1. a type of influenza recurring in worldwide epidemics, caused by a virus (A2 strain or subsequent antigenic variants), which apparently originated in China in 1957

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Example Sentences

My mother died in 1957 in the Asian flu pandemic.

From Washington Post

Hilleman stopped what had been called the “Asian flu” in its tracks.

From Washington Post

Concluding his narrative in the fall of 2020, Ferguson predicts that the coronavirus will probably be remembered not in the same league with the 1918 flu but rather with the “Asian flu” of 1957, which was seen as a huge crisis at the time but is largely forgotten 60 years later.

From Washington Post

He singled out former President Donald Trump’s role in spreading prejudice and misinformation by labeling COVID-19 the “Chinese Virus” and “Asian flu.”

From Seattle Times

Pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, which has killed approximately 36 million people, the Asian flu, which killed between one and four million, and COVID-19, which has already killed over 2.5 million, will ripple across the globe in ever more virulent strains, often mutating beyond our control.

From Salon