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Brevig Mission Cemetery

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Location	:	Brevig Mission, Nome Census Area, USA
Description	:	For decades, the 1918 virus was lost to history, a relic of a time when the understanding of infectious pathogens and the tools to study them were still in their infancy. Following the 1918 pandemic, generations of scientists and public health experts were left with only the epidemiological evidence of the 1918 pandemic virus’ lethality and the deleterious impact it had on global populations. A small ocean-side village in Alaska called Brevig Mission would become both testament to this deadly legacy as well as crucial to the 1918 virus’ eventual discovery. Today, fewer than 400 people live in Brevig Mission,... Read More	For decades, the 1918 virus was lost to history, a relic of a time when the understanding of infectious pathogens and the tools to study them were still in their infancy. Following the 1918 pandemic, generations of scientists and public health experts were left with only the epidemiological evidence of the 1918 pandemic virus’ lethality and the deleterious impact it had on global populations. A small ocean-side village in Alaska called Brevig Mission would become both testament to this deadly legacy as well as crucial to the 1918 virus’ eventual discovery. Today, fewer than 400 people live in Brevig Mission, but in the fall of 1918, around 80 adults lived there, mostly Inuit Natives. While different narratives exist as to how the 1918 virus came to reach the small village – whether by traders from a nearby city who traveled via dog-pulled sleds or even by a local mail delivery person – its impact on the village’s population is well documented. During the five-day period from November 15-20, 1918, the 1918 pandemic claimed the lives of 72 of the villages’ 80 adult inhabitants. Later, at the order of the local government, a mass grave site marked only by small white crosses was created on a hill beside the village – a grim monument to a community all but erased from existence. The grave was frozen in permafrost and left untouched until 1951. That year, Johan Hultin, a 25-year-old Swedish microbiologist and Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa, set out on an expedition to Brevig Mission in the hopes of finding the 1918 virus and in the process unearth new insights and answers. Hultin believed that within that preserved burial ground he might still find traces of the 1918 virus itself, frozen in time within the tissues of the villagers whose lives it had claimed. In 1951, Hultin successfully obtained permission from the village elders to excavate the Brevig Mission burial site. With the help of several of his university colleagues, Hultin set up a dig site over the grave. The excavation took days, as Hultin had to create campfires to thaw the earth enough to allow for digging. Two days in, Hultin came across the body of a little girl — her body was still preserved wearing a blue dress, and her hair was adorned with red ribbons5. Ultimately, Hultin successfully obtained lung tissue from four additional bodies buried at the site, but logistical and technological limitations of the time period would prove formidable. In a conversation Hultin had decades later with CDC microbiologist Dr. Terrence Tumpey (see part III – the reconstruction), Hultin would explain how during the return trip from Alaska to the University of Iowa, he flew on a DC-3 propeller-driven airplane that was forced to make multiple stops along the trip to refuel. During each stop, Hultin – ever resourceful – would deboard the plane and attempt to re-freeze the lung samples using carbon dioxide from a fire extinguisher. The noise generated from this activity apparently drew puzzled glances from fellow passengers and onlookers. Once back in Iowa, Hultin attempted to inject the lung tissue into chicken eggs to get the virus to grow.5 It did not. In the end, perhaps unsurprisingly, Hultin was unable to retrieve the 1918 virus from this initial attempt. It wouldn’t be until 46 years later, in 1997, that Hultin would have another opportunity to pursue the 1918 virus. That year, Hultin came across an article in the journal Science authored by Jeffery Taubenberger et al. entitled, “Initial Genetic Characterization of the 1918 “Spanish” Influenza Virus.”6 At the time, Dr. Taubenberger was a young molecular pathologist working for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C. In the article, Taubenberger and his team described their initial work to sequence part of the genome of the 1918 virus. The genome is the complete list of genetic instructions that make up an organism, similar to a blueprint used for construction. Many people are familiar with the concept of DNA, which is dual-stranded and determines the fundamental genetic characteristics of nearly all living things. However, the genome of an influenza virus consists of single-stranded RNA instead. Taubenberger’s team team successfully extracted RNA of the 1918 virus from lung tissue obtained from a 21-year-old male U.S. service member stationed in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. The serviceman had been admitted to the camp’s hospital on September 20, 1918, with a diagnosis of influenza infection and pneumonia. He died six days later on September 26, 1918, and a sample of his lung tissue was collected and preserved for later study. From this tissue, Taubenberger’s group was able to sequence nine fragments of viral RNA from four of the virus’ eight gene segments. This work did not represent a complete sequence of the entire 1918 virus’ genome, but it provided a clearer picture of the pandemic virus than ever before. Based on the 1918 virus’ sequence data Taubenberger assembled in 1997, he and his fellow researchers initially claimed that the 1918 virus was a novel influenza A (H1N1) virus that belonged to a subgroup of viruses that came from humans and pigs, as opposed to birds.6 However, there was still much to learn about the virus. After reading Taubenberger’s article, Hultin once again became inspired to attempt to recover the 1918 virus. Hultin wrote a letter to Taubenberger, asking if Taubenberger would be interested if he could return to Brevig Mission and obtain lung tissues from victims of the 1918 virus buried in the Alaskan permafrost. During a return phone call, Taubenberger responded, yes. A week later, Hultin departed for Brevig Mission once again with meager tools for the task. He famously borrowed his wife’s garden shears to assist in the excavation. Forty-six years had passed since Hultin’s first trip to the gravesite, and he was now 72 years old. He once again sought permission to excavate the gravesite from the village council — which he obtained — and he also hired locals to assist in the work. Hultin paid for the trip himself at a personal cost of about $3,200.7 The excavation took about five days, but this time Hultin made a remarkable find. Buried and preserved by the permafrost about 7 feet deep was the body of an Inuit woman that Hultin named “Lucy.” Lucy, Hultin would learn, was an obese woman who likely died in her mid-20s due to complications from the 1918 virus. Her lungs were perfectly frozen and preserved in the Alaskan permafrost. Hultin removed them, placed them in preserving fluid, and later shipped them separately to Taubenberger and his fellow researchers, including Dr. Ann Reid, at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.5 Ten days later, Hultin received a call from the scientists to confirm — to perhaps everyone’s collective astonishment — that positive 1918 virus genetic material had indeed been obtained from Lucy’s lung tissue.

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Brevig Mission Cemetery

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