Recent disease events such as SARS, H1N1 and avian influenza, and haemorrhagic fevers have focussed policy and public concern as never before on epidemics and so-called 'emerging infectious diseases'. Understanding and responding to these often unpredictable events have become major challenges for local, national and international bodies. All too often, responses can become restricted by implicit assumptions about who or what is to blame that may not capture the dynamics and uncertainties at play in the multi-scale interactions of people, animals and microbes. As a result, policies intended to forestall epidemics may fail, and may even further threaten health, livelihoods and human rights.

This book focuses on how different policy-makers, scientists, and local populations construct alternative narratives—accounts of the causes and appropriate responses to outbreaks—about epidemics at the global, national and local level. The contrast between emergency-oriented, top-down responses to what are perceived as potentially global outbreaks and longer-term approaches to diseases, such as AIDS, which may now be considered endemic, is highlighted. Case studies—on avian influenza, SARS, obesity, H1N1 influenza, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and haemorrhagic fevers—cover a broad historical, geographical and biological range.
As this book explores, it is often the most vulnerable members of a population—the poor, the socially excluded and the already ill—who are likely to suffer most from epidemic diseases. At the same time, they may be less likely to benefit from responses that may be designed from a global perspective that neglects social, ecological and political conditions on the ground. This book brings the focus back to these marginal populations to reveal the often unintended consequences of current policy responses to epidemics. Important implications emerge—for how epidemics are thought about and represented; for how surveillance and response is designed; and for whose knowledge and perspectives should be included.

Table of Contents:

1. Epidemic Narratives—Melissa Leach and Sarah Dry
2. New Rules for Health? Epidemics and the International Health Regulations—Sarah Dry
3. Haemorrhagic Fevers: Narratives, Politics and Pathways—Melissa Leach and Barry S. Hewlett
4. SARS, China, and Global Health Governance—Gerald Bloom
5. Constructing AIDS: Contesting Perspectives on an Evolving Epidemic—Jerker Edström
6. Local Practice Versus Exceptionalist Rhetoric: Case Studies of HIV/AIDS Programming in South Africa—Hayley MacGregor
7. Fighting the 'Flu: Risk, Uncertainty and Surveillance—Ian Scoones
8. Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis: Narratives of Security, Global Healthcare and Structural Violence—Paul Nightingale
9. Epidemics of Obesity: Narratives of 'Blame' and 'Blame Avoidance'—Erik Millstone
10. Scapepigging: H1N1 Influenza in Egypt—Mariz Tadros
11. Towards Conclusions: Science, Politics and Social Justice in Epidemic Accounts And Responses—Sarah Dry and Melissa Leach
References
Index