Article ID: CBB360508361

Tuberculosis Control in Postcolonial South India and Southeast Asia: Fractured Sovereignties in International Health, 1948-1960 (2018)

unapi

Between 1948 and 1960, South India (Madras State) and Southeast Asia—with an emphasis on Indonesia, the Philippines, and Burma— emerged as global centres for tuberculosis control. This article attempts to situate tuberculosis control of these two regions within the broader context of transnational health. It investigates the unique ways in which tuberculosis control in South India and Southeast Asia reflected the inner tensions between the notional magic bullet approach, which focuses on specific cures to root out the cause of the disease, and a more holistic approach that relates disease prevention to overall well-being of the population. The implementation of tuberculosis control programs across South India and Southeast Asia shed light on the nature of the postcolonial state sovereignty in public health. Across India, as in Southeast Asia, the state sovereignty appertaining to the implementation of health policy was fractured, as evident in the opposition to the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccination. Based on a wide range of archival materials, this article situates tuberculosis control within the context of nationalist discourse and preventive medicine. In doing so, it adds not only to the historiography of tuberculosis in non-Western contexts, which has hitherto focused on India, Sri Lanka, or Africa but also to the relatively new field of Southeast Asian medical history.

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Authors & Contributors
Elmhirst, Rebecca
Venkat, Bharat Jayram
Carl Middleton
Suphāng Čhanthawānit
Silvia Vignato
Alcano, Matteo Carlo
Concepts
Disease and diseases
Public health
Infectious diseases
Tuberculosis
Medicine
Prevention and control of disease
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
Places
India
Thailand
Indonesia
Southeast Asia
Myanmar (Burma)
Argentina
Institutions
World Health Organization (WHO)
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