Isacar Bolaños

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Iraq was visited by two influenza pandemics—one in 1889–1893 (the so-called Russian flu), the other in 1918–1920 (the so-called Spanish flu). These pandemics occurred during two completely different political contexts in the history of Iraq—that of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Iraq since the sixteenth century, and that of the British wartime occupation, which brought an end to Ottoman rule in the region during World War I. The different political contexts in which influenza appeared in Iraq produced significant differences in how Ottoman and British authorities responded to the disease. Specifically, while influenza was widespread across Iraq during both pandemics, the Ottomans largely ignored the disease, whereas the British tracked and studied it. Despite these differences, however, there were certain similarities across both pandemics. For one, there were subsequent outbreaks of influenza following the worst of each pandemic, but these did not meaningfully shape Ottoman or British public health priorities. Second, in both cases, there was uncertainty about the nature of influenza, much as there was elsewhere in the world. As this article demonstrates, the history of influenza in late Ottoman and British occupied Iraq was one marked by continuity and change.