A The high mortality of the Spanish pandemic in the Naval Division in War Operations in 1918
Abstract
The naval experience with the 1918 pandemic during World War I remains underexplored despite its key role on the pandemic ìs global diffusion and the epidemiological interest of isolated and relatively homogeneous populations. The pandemic outbreak in the Brazilian naval fleet is of particular interest both because of its severity and the fact that it was the only Latin American military force deployed to war. The objective is to study the mortality patterns of the pandemic in the brazilian fleet sent to patrol the West African coast in 1918. We investigated mortality across vessels, ranks, and occupations based on official population and mortality records from the Brazilian Navy Archives.