Paper short abstract:

Artemisinin-based malaria treatment changed how malaria is treated in sub-Saharan Africa and led to China's first Nobel Prize in 2015. Based on ethnographic research, this presentation explores the relationships created by the circulation of this medication and the imaginary of China in Africa.

Paper long abstract:

Developed as a result of Mao Zedong's initiative to use Traditional Chinese Medicine to treat malaria, artemisinin-based treatment did not enter the global market until the early 21st century. The production, use, and regulation of artemisinin-based medications provoke new controversies as well as social and political relationships. This paper uses the results of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in China, Geneva, and the Comoros Union to reflect upon some of the effects of the circulation of these medications and situate these effects within the broader context of Chinese public health and development work in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the Comoros Union, a team of doctors from one of Mao Zedong's original malaria research laboratories, in partnership with the national government, implemented a malaria elimination project from 2007-2015 using the strategy of free and obligatory mass distribution of artemisinin-based malaria medication. The WHO took a strong position against this strategy of mass distribution, while local and transnational stakeholders had mixed reactions. At the end of the eight-year malaria elimination program, the disease was almost completely eradicated from the country.

This paper explores the social and political relationships provoked by this circulation of artemisinin-based malaria medications as well as China's increasingly visible role in public health and development in Africa. In the Comoros Union that was under French rule until 1975, how is the growing Chinese influence on health care interpreted? What kind of alternative does the Chinese approach to health offer to individuals living within this post-colonial context?

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