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Medical Humanities | NEGLECTED CRISES, FORGOTTEN HISTORIES: MALARIA IN SOUTH AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA, 1900-PRESENT



Event Date 05 Aug 2019 (Mon), 03:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Venue HSS Meeting Room 1
Organiser SoH Medical Humanities cluster (Email : soh_comms@ntu.edu.sg )


Event Info

NEGLECTED CRISES, FORGOTTEN HISTORIES: MALARIA IN SOUTH  AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA, 1900-PRESENT

Whereas Africa has been the focus of most global health initiatives relating to malaria, the burden of malaria in Asia has been consistently and massively under-estimated. The Greater Mekong Sub-Region is also the origin of resistance to the key drug used in the treatment of the most serious form of malaria (Plasmodium falciparum) and Southeast Asia has seen the rapid spread of a form of malaria once thought to be confined to monkeys (Plasmodium knowlesi). Despite this, the historical dynamics of malaria in Asia have received relatively little attention and the importance of the disease in the continent’s demographic, social and political history is barely understood.

With this in mind, historians at Oxford University have been working with scientists, public-health workers and policy-makers to better understand the causes of malaria in Asia and to produce solutions tailor-made to the unique circumstances of different Asian countries. This lecture will focus on some aspects of that work, particularly as it relates to South and Southeast Asia. As well as showing how history has been valued by other disciplines and in policy-making, the lecture will also reveal how the practice of history can be enhanced by such cooperation; whether it be through the identification of new research questions or helping historians to find new answers to existing questions.

Mark Harrison is Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford, where he co-directs the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities (Faculty of Medical Sciences) and the Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology. He is also co-director of the Programme on Collective Responsibility for Infectious Disease, at the Oxford Martin School.  He has published extensively on the history of disease and medicine, especially as it relates to imperialism, globalization and the military.   



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