Probably the most well known is an outbreak of swine flu among soldiers in Fort Dix, New Jersey in 1976. The virus caused disease with x-ray evidence of pneumonia in at least 4 soldiers and 1 death; all of these patients had previously been healthy. The virus was transmitted to close contacts in a basic training environment, with limited transmission outside the basic training group. The virus is thought to have circulated for a month and disappeared. The source of the virus, the exact time of its introduction into Fort Dix, and factors limiting its spread and duration are unknown. The Fort Dix outbreak may have been caused by introduction of an animal virus into a stressed human population in close contact in crowded facilities during the winter. The swine influenza A virus collected from a Fort Dix soldier was named A/New Jersey/76 (Hsw1N1).
Source(s):
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm

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The predicted epidemic never surfaced. It, like this one, was a brand new strain that seemed to come out of nowhere. But the 1976 strain was actually much worse. The fact that it is a new strain does not necessarily make it more dangerous.
Source(s):
http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/65/926/Swine%20Flu%20Affair%20Electro...

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