[M1903A1]

The original article makes reference to the 1918 Spanish flu virus...my understanding is that, until recently, there were literally no remaining samples of the virus in the world--through the decades, nobody thought to save any.

Even a concerted effort by scientists to recover a sample from the graves of known flu victims turned up nothing until a few years ago, when a mass grave of 1918 flu victims in Alaskan permafrost finally yielded samples for researchers.