Mali Randall Packard PhD at the School of Arts and Sciences, History of Africa
Today, the international scientific community stands on the brink of developing a vaccine for meningococcal meningitis that has the potential to eliminate meningitis epidemics from West Africa. (Meningitis Vaccine Project, 2007) As policies are created surrounding vaccine delivery, it is increasingly important to understand how national and local governments have attempted to implement epidemic meningitis control strategies in the past, and how their constituencies have responded to those attempts. Looking at Mali’s attempts at meningitis control in Bamako in 1969, it is clear that official disease control strategies were influenced by a host of historically contingent political, social, and intellectual realities, such as the recent regime change, a rapidly urbanizing city, and the contested nature of scientific knowledge about epidemic meningitis control within the international scientific community. But disease control attempts cannot be understood in isolation, as past experiences influence the future expectations of governments and local communities alike. Thus, my first goal is to better understand the factors influencing disease control during Mali’s meningitis epidemic in 1969 and how Bamako’s residents responded to the epidemic and attempts to control it. But it will also be important to contextualize attempts at meningitis control in 1969 by examining colonial attempts at meningitis control in the 1940s and 1950s, and subsequent post-colonial strategies during Mali’s next large meningitis outbreaks in the early 1980s and the mid-1990s. Emphasizing the ways in which Mali’s residents have both shaped and responded to official policies will provide important insight into the complex dynamics surrounding disease control. In addition, this historical research will inform public health policy research seeking to create politically and culturally appropriate strategies for future vaccination campaigns.
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Kristin Lehner
