Agricultural development, labour migration, and the resurgence of malaria in Swaziland, 1950-1981

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented July 1985The introduction of DDT and related pesticides in the war against malaria in Asia, Africa and Latin America during the 1940s had a dramatic impact on anopheles mosquito populations and consequently on the worldwide incidence of malaria. The initial success of pesticide spraying created immense optimism on the part of health officials and economic planners. For the first time, it appeared that malaria, which had had such a devastating impact on human populations and had retarded economic development in tropical and sub-tropical areas, could be controlled or even eradicated. Thirty years later, however, malaria has made a major comeback. … The resurgence of malaria in many areas has been linked to the so-called "green-revolution", the development of large scale agricultural projects combined with the extensive use of fertilizers and pesticides to increase agricultural production. The heavy use of pesticides succeeded in controlling some crop destroying peats, however, it had the unforseen consequence of producing DDT resistant strains of anopheles mosquitoes, short circuiting vector control measures and making possible the recommencement of malaria transmission in areas in which the disease had been brought under control

Cuidados biomédicos de saúde em Angola e na Companhia de Diamantes de Angola, c. 1910-1970

Pretende-se caracterizar a prestação de cuidados biomédicos em Angola durante a atividade da Companhia de Diamantes de Angola. Uma análise comparativa de políticas e práticas de saúde pública de vários atores coloniais, como os serviços de saúde da Companhia, sua congénere do Estado e outras empresas coloniais, revelará diferenças de investimento na saúde, isto é, instalações e pessoal de saúde, e tratamentos. Este escrutínio bem como as condições de vida iluminarão o carácter idiossincrático e central dos serviços de saúde da Companhia em termos de morbimortalidade em Angola, e a centralidade destes para as representações de um império cuidador

Epidemiologists, social scientists, and the structure of medical research on AIDS in Africa

African Studies Center Working Paper No. 13

Agricultural development, migrant labor and the resurgence of malaria in Swaziland

Much of the research on the recent resurgence of malaria in Third World areas has focused on the problem of vector resistance arising out of the widespread use of pesticides in conjunction with the development of large-scale agricultural projects. Evidence from southern Africa, and particularly from Swaziland, where a resurgence of malaria has occurred in the absence of pesticide-resistent strains of Anopheles mosquitoes, suggests that changes in agroecosystems, labor utilization and settlement patterns, which are also associated with large-scale agricultural development, may play an equally important role in the resurgence of malaria. Renewed efforts to control malaria must, therefore, take account of the social and economic, as well as the biological determinants of this disease.

Industrial production, health and disease in Sub-Saharan Africa

Industrial development in Africa has carried with it significant health costs. These costs are normally defined rather narrowly by those concerned about occupational or industrial health and safety and refer only to the health consequences of worker exposure to specific hazardous processes, materials or environmental conditions associated with the workplace. A more comprehensive measurement of industrial health costs, however, must also include an assessment of the impact which industrial development and the creation of an industrial workforce has on ecological relationships, environmental conditions and patterns of sickness and health in the areas surrounding industrial centers. Traditional definitions of occupational health also tend to focus attention on the immediate causal linkages which exist between the development of particular industrial processes and specific health hazards. Yet any attempt to fully understand the causes of industrial health problems in Africa must look beyond these immediate causal linkages and examine the wider political and economic forces which determine the shape of industrial development and the extent to which the health costs of this development are borne by industrial workers and their families, as well as by people who may not be directly or even indirectly connected to industrial development, but may, nonetheless, be exposed to its health risks. The paper surveys the direct and indirect health costs of mining, large scale agriculture, and manufacturing in Africa and examines the economic and political interests which have determined the distribution of these costs.industrialization occupational health Africa political economy

White plague, black labor: tuberculosis and the political economy of health and disease in South Africa

Why does tuberculosis, a disease which is both curable and preventable, continue to produce over 50,000 new cases a year in South Africa, primarily among blacks? In answering this question Randall Packard traces the history of one of the most devastating diseases in twentieth-century Africa, against the background of the changing political and economic forces that have shaped South African society from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. These forces have generated a growing backlog of disease among black workers and their families and at the same time have prevented the development of effective public health measures for controlling it. Packard's rich and nuanced analysis is a significant contribution to the growing body of literature on South Africa's social history as well as to the history of medicine and the political economy of health