Africa in the Time of Cholera
A History of Pandemics from 1817 to the Present

This book combines evidence from natural and social sciences to examine the impact on Africa of seven cholera pandemics since 1817.

Myron Echenberg (Author)

9780521188203, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 February 2011

230 pages, 6 b/w illus. 3 maps 7 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.34 kg

'Echenberg has nicely summarized the history of cholera for the well-known Africa Studies Series, organizing his work by combining the first six pandemics - 1817 to 1947 - for the initial half of this book and then considering the seventh pandemic - 1947 to the present - as the last half of the book.' Frederick Holmes, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

This book combines evidence from natural and social sciences to examine the impact on Africa of seven cholera pandemics since 1817, particularly the current impact of cholera on such major countries as Senegal, Angola, Mozambique, Congo, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Myron Echenberg highlights the irony that this once-terrible scourge, having receded from most of the globe, now kills thousands of Africans annually - Africa now accounts for more than 90 percent of the world's cases and deaths - and leaves many more with severe developmental impairment. Responsibility for the suffering caused is shared by Western lending and health institutions and by often venal and incompetent African leadership. If the threat of this old scourge is addressed with more urgency, great progress in the public health of Africans can be achieved.

Introduction
Part I. The First Six Cholera Pandemics, 1817–1947: 1. 'The fiend of pestilence' circles the globe
2. Medical responses
3. Cholera ravages Sub-Saharan Africa: Senegambia, Ethiopia, and Zanzibar, 1821–94
4. Cholera in North Africa and the Nile Valley: Tunisia, 1835–68, and Egypt, 1823–1947
Part II. The Seventh Cholera Pandemic Strikes Africa: 5. Medical changes
6. Seventh pandemic in Africa, 1971–2009
7. Risk factors: environment and geography, armed conflicts and the dispersal of refugees
8. Risk factors: public health policy choices among stable and weak states
9. Zimbabwe, portrait of cholera in a failed state
10. Cholera today.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX], African history [HBJH]