The Iranian Experience with the 1918 Influenza Epidemic

[Snowy Owl]

? Compromised Constitutions: the Iranian Experience with the 1918 Influenza Epidemic ?

Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 77 (2003), pp. 367 - 393.

http://abstractairanica.revues.org/document2732.html

All thanks to Amir Arsalan Afkhami​

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This clearly written and cogent study considers the effect of the 1918 ?Spanish? flu on Iran.

This pandemic sent untold millions to their deaths around the world, but struck particularly hard in Iran, a country already devastated by war, famine, and disease.

The author estimates that of the country?s circa eleven million inhabitants, anywhere between one and nearly two-and-a-half million people perished, which means that, at anywhere between 8 and 21.7 percent of the entire population, the country suffered a higher mortality rate than perhaps any other country.

The fatality rate was higher in rural than in urban areas.

Iranians were especially vulnerable to the pandemics, the author argues, because of the high incidence of debilitating diseases such as malaria and cholera, as well as widespread popular addiction to opium.


Rudi Matthee

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: The Iranian Experience with the 1918 Influenza Epidemic

A MRSA co-infection with seasonal influenza increases the fatality rate, as per a recent CDC Health Advisory:

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23512