SYNDEMICS OF WAR: MALNUTRITION-INFECTIOUS DISEASE INTERACTIONS AND THE UNINTENDED HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF INTENTIONAL WAR POLICIES

Harnessing technology for infectious disease response in conflict zones: Challenges, innovations, and policy implications

Epidemic outbreaks of infectious diseases in conflict zones are complex threats to public health and humanitarian activities that require creativity approaches of reducing their damage. This narrative review focuses on the technology intersection with infectious disease response in conflict zones, and complexity of healthcare infrastructure, population displacement, and security risks. This narrative review explores how conflict-related destruction is harmful towards healthcare systems and the impediments to disease surveillance and response activities. In this regards, the review also considered the contributions of technological innovations, such as the improvement of epidemiological surveillance, mobile health (mHealth) technologies, genomic sequencing, and surveillance technologies, in strengthening infectious disease management in conflict settings. Ethical issues related to data privacy, security and fairness are also covered. By advisement on policy that focuses on investment in surveillance systems, diagnostic capacity, capacity building, collaboration, and even ethical governance, stakeholders can leverage technology to enhance the response to infectious disease in conflict settings and, thus, protect the global health security. This review is full of information for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners who are dealing with the issues of infectious disease outbreaks in conflicts worn areas.

Testing the waters: Syndemic gastrointestinal distress in Lambaréné, Gabon, 1926-1932

This paper argues that a cluster of pathogens, hazardous labor conditions, and environmental constraints rendered chronic gastrointestinal distress fatal for African laborers living near Lambaréné, Gabon during the 1920s. Application of syndemic theory and epidemiological methods on patient records at Hospital Schweitzer, the central hospital of the region, explain how a seemingly simple diagnosis of chronic gastrointestinal distress belied a complex web of worsening biological and social outcomes for laborers in the tropical forests of central Gabon. An analysis of the syndemic suffering of GI patients reveals how the dysentery pathogen became tied to the peaks and valleys of the colonial economy, and in particular, the colonial extraction of tropical hardwoods. These processes culminated in the summer of 1929 when the highest number of timber exports coincided with the deadliest months of dysentery outbreak for the patient population at Hospital Schweitzer. This case study proposes syndemics as an effective theoretical framework to research historical precedents of the entanglement of people, pathogens, and illness.