Migrant Clinics and Hookworm Science: Peripheral Origins of International Health, 1840–1920

Palmer, Steven

doi:10.1353/bhm.0.0292

Cited by 18 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…14 Steven Palmer's study of hookworm similarly locates the 'peripheral origins of international health' in Latin American states, while Socrates Litsios explores how the concept of PHC emerged from a variety of locations including China, Yugoslavia and South Africa. 15 Other histories have emphasised the agency of local actors in negotiating and shaping health policy, such as Ben Walker's detailed account of missionaries, colonial administrators, local chiefs and national politicians in Ghana. 16 This paper will follow in this tradition and use the GWEP to explore developments in global health policy on an international scale, while also emphasising how local actorsincluding populations of guinea wormrealigned global policy on a local level.…”

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Participating in eradication: how Guinea worm redefined eradication, and eradication redefined Guinea worm, 1985–2022

Roberts

2023

Med. Hist.

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Guinea worm disease (dracunculiasis) is a debilitating waterborne disease. Once widespread, it is now on the brink of eradication. However, the Guinea Worm Eradication Programme (GWEP), like guinea worm itself, has been under-studied by historians. The GWEP demonstrates an unusual model of eradication, one focused on primary healthcare (PHC), community participation, health education and behavioural change (safe drinking). The PHC movement collided with a waterborne disease, which required rapid but straightforward treatment to prevent transmission, creating a historical space for the emergence of village-based volunteer health workers, as local actors realigned global health policy on a local level. These Village Volunteers placed eradication in the hands of residents of endemic areas, epitomising the participation-focused nature of the GWEP. This participatory mode of eradication highlights the agency of those in endemic areas, who, through volunteering, safe drinking and community self-help, have been the driving force behind dracunculiasis eradication. In the twenty-first century, guinea worm has become firstly a problem of human mobility, as global health has struggled to contain cases in refugees and nomads, and latterly a zoonotic disease, as guinea worm has shifted hosts to become primarily a parasite of dogs. This demonstrates both the potential of One Health approaches and the need for One Health to adopt from PHC and the GWEP a focus on the health of humans and animals in isolated and impoverished areas. Guinea worm demonstrates how the biological and the historical interact, with the GWEP and guinea worm shaping each other over the course of the eradication programme.

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