Spanish Influenza in Mashhad from 1918 to 1920

Spanish flu was one of the harshest historical pandemics in the northeastern Iran, which killed many local people. Its first outbreak in Mashhad dates back to August 3 and 4, 1918. This disease continued until 1920 in successive waves. The death toll of this disease in Mashhad (with a population of 100,000 people at the time) was possibly as high as 3,500. Moreover, this disease caused outbreak of other diseases. In fact, it killed five percent of this city’s population and resulted in huge deaths in this city. This paper takes the importance of Mashhad’s medical history into consideration and at the same time investigates the outstanding role of Spanish influenza, World War I, and the presence of Russians who were the main cause of this outbreak in Mashhad, and the reaction of Iranian and foreign physicians to this disease and the medicine they prescribed, as well as the significant role of British in fake Persian Famine, opium addiction, and food poverty.