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Polio eradication and its discontents: an historian's journey through an international public health (Un) civil war

By: Series: New perspectives in South Asian historyPublication details: 2012 Orient BlackSwan HydrabadDescription: x, 157 pISBN:
  • 9788125046561
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 614.5490954  M8P6
Summary: There are many infectious diseases which kill millions of children every year the world over, but polio is not one of them. So why did the World Health Assembly in 1988 choose the eradication of polio as a global goal? This is the key question that William Muraskin asks and it inexorably leads to the unravelling of the official heroic story of the fight against polio.The author finds that the public health agenda of every single nation of the world was effectively hijacked by a small group of people working at the global level. They were out to show that eradication was a viable tool in fighting the disease. For this group, the disease of poliomyelitis was not in itself primarily significant but rather it was a disease of opportunity which could be used to prove that disease eradication in general was a viable instrument of public health.
List(s) this item appears in: Pandemic Books
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Item type Current library Item location Collection Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode
Books Vikram Sarabhai Library Rack 33-B / Slot 1736 (2nd Floor, East Wing) Non-fiction General Stacks 614.5490954 M8P6 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 177204

There are many infectious diseases which kill millions of children every year the world over, but polio is not one of them. So why did the World Health Assembly in 1988 choose the eradication of polio as a global goal? This is the key question that William Muraskin asks and it inexorably leads to the unravelling of the official heroic story of the fight against polio.The author finds that the public health agenda of every single nation of the world was effectively hijacked by a small group of people working at the global level. They were out to show that eradication was a viable tool in fighting the disease. For this group, the disease of poliomyelitis was not in itself primarily significant but rather it was a disease of opportunity which could be used to prove that disease eradication in general was a viable instrument of public health.

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