Deconstructing the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic in the Maltese Islands

This study examines the morbidity experience of the island populations of Malta and Gozo during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. The epidemic pattern for the two islands showed considerable diversity that was manifested in Gozo’s lack of a herald wave and significantly higher morbidity rates during wave 2 (September-November 1918), followed by a distinctly muted pattern of morbidity in wave 3 relative to Malta. Common features or noncontributory factors that reduced the morbidity disparity across the two islands included poverty, female gendered roles and children aged to 10-14 as introducers of sickness to the household, mass gatherings as effective means of disease transmission, and tuberculosis as a syndemic potential. A rarely available resource, the register of notifiable diseases in Gozo, enabled our research to gain a far deeper appreciation of intrapopulation variation at the empirical level, which in turn allowed for a better understanding of how elements of isolation, exposure history, and rurality could play important roles shaping the epidemic experience. © 2018 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.