Abstract
Abstract Infectious diseases in Africa have a natural and social history and a technical medical and political response, and they are a human and economic burden on populations and institutions. This chapter explores these issues based on a review of the literature and of empirical data produced in the context of ethnographic research. It is not always easy create a human and economic balance sheet of infectious disease in Africa, given the continent’s size and magnitude and the major institutional constraints on counting losses in an Africa that is geographically, culturally, and healthwise difficult to control. The provision of care, both curative and preventive, is constantly confronted with a problem of contextualization, and therefore of strategic and technical relevance, when one is comparing medical and political practices with the aspirations and rationalities of communities. The refusal or denial of grassroots innovations and the international dependence on epidemic-response mechanisms show the immensity of the operational challenges, to which are added the different social stakes of the multiple partners in the fight against diseases.
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