Description
Book SynopsisIn The Viral Network, Theresa MacPhail examines our collective fascination with and fear of viruses through the lens of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. In April 2009, a novel strain of H1N1 influenza virus resulting from a combination of bird, swine, and human flu viruses emerged in Veracruz, Mexico. The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced an official end to the pandemic in August 2010. Experts agree that the global death toll reached 284,500. The public health response to the pandemic was complicated by the simultaneous economic crisis and by the public scrutiny of official response in an atmosphere of widespread connectivity. MacPhail follows the H1N1 influenza virus''s trajectory through time and space in order to construct a three-dimensional picture of what happens when global public health comes down with a case of the flu.The Viral Network affords a rare look inside the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, as well as Hong Kong's virology labs
Trade Review
The author brings to light some very important issues associated with disease outbreaks that are worthy of dicsussion, and she offers a unique perspective on pandemic responses. Those with a particular interest in medical anthropology would likely enjoy this perspective.
-- Sarah Bevins * BioScience *
Table of ContentsPrologue to a Pathography1. Seeing the Past or Telling the Future?: On the Origins of Pandemics and the Phylogeny of Viral Expertise2. The Invisible Chapter (Work in the Lab)3. Quarantine, Epidemiological Knowledge, and Infectious Disease Research in Hong Kong4. The Siren's Song of Avian Influenza: A Brief History of Future Pandemics5. The Predictable Unpredictability of Viruses and the Concept of "Strategic Uncertainty"6. The Anthropology of Good Information: Data Deluge, Knowledge, and Context in Global Public Health7. The Heretics of Microbiology: Charisma, Expertise, Disbelief, and the Production of KnowledgeEpilogue
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