The Fever

Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years

De: Sonia Shah

Narrado por: Maha Chehlaoui

In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their names - and opened their pocketbooks - in hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren’t we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?

In The Fever, the journalist Sonia Shah sets out to answer these questions, delivering a timely, inquisitive chronicle of the illness and its influence on human lives. Through the centuries, she finds, we’ve invested our hopes in a panoply of drugs and technologies, and invariably those hopes have been dashed. From the settling of the New World to the construction of the Panama Canal, through wars and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, Shah tracks malaria’s jagged ascent and the tragedies in its wake, revealing a parasite every bit as persistent as the insects that carry it. With distinguished prose and original reporting from Panama, Malawi, Cameroon, India, and elsewhere, The Fever captures the curiously fascinating, devastating history of this long-standing thorn in the side of humanity.

©2010 Sonia Shah (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Complex issue

This is a comprehensive story of a very complex issue. Unfortunately it’s non-chronological presentation makes it more difficult to understand and follow the timeline. I wanted to enjoy this book more since it is well researched, however it is presented more as a series of scientific presentations, than a history of malaria. The concluding sentiment which I believe to be absolutely true, is that malaria is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Good Read

Principles here are applicable to Sars / Covid. We are making the same errors with Covid.

Informative

Also disturbing because of group thinking and poor attention to malaria history by current funding

if u work with malaria, it's a go

the book is not well paced, nor well narrated, imho. but the information and the take is super relevant. a must go for researchers and people involved with malaria.

I formation on a global problem clearly described

Ease of listening and understanding topic of malaria, its origin and spread. Comments on political implications useful.