The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria (Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease) - Softcover

Packard, Randall M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 142140396X ISBN 13: 9781421403960

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Winner, 2008 Book of the Year, End Malaria Awards, Malaria Foundation International

Malaria sickens hundreds of millions of people―and kills one to three million―each year. Despite massive efforts to eradicate the disease, it remains a major public health problem in poorer tropical regions. But malaria has not always been concentrated in tropical areas. How did other regions control malaria and why does the disease still flourish in some parts of the globe?

From Russia to Bengal to Palm Beach, Randall Packard’s far-ranging narrative traces the natural and social forces that help malaria spread and make it deadly. He finds that war, land development, crumbling health systems, and globalization―coupled with climate change and changes in the distribution and flow of water―create conditions in which malaria's carrier mosquitoes thrive. The combination of these forces, Packard contends, makes the tropical regions today a perfect home for the disease.

Authoritative, fascinating, and eye-opening, this short history of malaria concludes with policy recommendations for improving control strategies and saving lives.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

2008 Book of the Year, End Malaria Awards, Malaria Foundation International

Malaria sickens hundreds of millions of people―and kills one to three million―each year. Despite massive efforts to eradicate the disease, it remains a major public health problem in poorer tropical regions. But malaria has not always been concentrated in tropical areas. How did other regions control malaria, and why does the disease still flourish in parts of the globe.

This acclaimed history of malaria traces the natural and social forces that help the disease spread and make it deadly.

"This is an interesting read―a short, well-written, and exceptionally well-documented history and commentary on the possible control―and, hopefully, eradication―of one of the world's major diseases."―JAMA

"A vigorously argued and accessibly narrated ecological history of malaria, a contribution as much to social medicine and studies in the political economy of disease as to medical history."―Isis

"This is a remarkable book that will be of great interest to any historian working on the history of disease and to those historians who deal with the difficult question of how to write sound and clear general histories."―Bulletin of the History of Medicine

"An excellent and well-balanced book that will be of interest to a wide audience. It should be required reading for all those contemplating a second malaria eradication campaign."―Nature Medicine

About the Author:

Randall M. Packard is director of the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of White Plague, Black Labor: Tuberculosis and the Political Economy of Health and Disease in South Africa and coeditor of Emerging Illnesses and Society: Negotiating the Public Health Agenda, also published by Johns Hopkins.

About this edition

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 142140396X
• ISBN 13: 9781421403960
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 316