Ryan McLane: lessons from the 1918 killer flu

This year marks 100 years since the most deadly epidemic in NZ's history claimed nearly 10,000 lives. The influenza pandemic of 1918, at the end of WW1, hit hard and fast killing four times as many Maori as pakeha. There are only a handful of memorials around the country - the devastation is often overlooked because it occurred at the same time as the war in Europe in ended. Ryan McLane, a communicable diseases specialist who's a health advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, explains why it was so lethal.