Solar Cycle, Maunder Minimum and Pandemic Influenza

Abstract

We explore the idea that influenza pandemics may arise from the transference of new virions (new sub-types of the influenza virus) of cosmic origin in general accord with the theory of cometary panspermia. Such a transfer process will be modulated by the sunspot cycle and through its role in affecting the interplanetary magnetic field configurations in the Earth’s vicinity. Transfers of virus could take place directly from comets or indirectly from a transient repository represented for instance by the Kordylewski if dust clouds at the L4 and L5 Lagrange libration points of the Earth-Moon system. In either case an active sun appears to be a perequisite for effective transfers. The long remission of influenza pandemics throughout the period 1645-1715, during the Maunder sunspot minimum, might be understood on the basis of our model.