The 1889–1890 pandemic was the last great pandemic of the 19th century, killing approximately 1 million people worldwide and possibly caused by a coronavirus rather than influenza.
Key Facts
- Estimated global deaths
- ~1 million
- World population at time
- ~1.5 billion
- Death rate (% of population)
- 0.067%
- Peak period
- October 1889 to December 1890
- Russian Empire excess mortality
- 60,000–90,000
- Possible pathogen
- Coronavirus OC43 or influenza strain
By the Numbers
Cause → Event → Consequence
A respiratory viral pathogen, long attributed to influenza but more recently proposed by some researchers to be human coronavirus OC43, emerged and spread globally in the late 19th century, facilitated by increasingly connected rail and shipping networks linking major population centers.
Beginning in late 1889, the pandemic swept across the world in multiple waves, with the most severe mortality occurring between October 1889 and December 1890, followed by recurrences through 1895. It earned the names 'Asiatic flu' and 'Russian flu' from contemporaries who described it as an influenza outbreak of extraordinary reach.
The pandemic killed roughly 1 million people worldwide, representing about 0.067% of the global population, and became the last major pandemic of the 19th century. It prompted early epidemiological study of influenza-like illnesses and, in the 21st century, renewed scientific debate about the role of coronaviruses in historical pandemic events.