Scores of patients crowd the waiting hall of a clinic on Hong Kong Island during the influenza epidemic in July 1968. Photo: SCMP
How Hong Kong flu struck without warning 50 years ago, and claimed over a million lives worldwide
Known formally as H3N2, the flu strain was highly contagious, and left clinics in the city packed, with 500,000 people infected, before it steadily spread through Asia, Australia, Africa, South America, Europe and the US
Scores of patients crowd the waiting hall of a clinic on Hong Kong Island during the influenza epidemic in July 1968. Photo: SCMP