Paper short abstract:

My paper aims to analyse the specificities of a Global Health technology and suggests that this is best done by conceptualizing its systemic and infrastructural implications.

Paper long abstract:

The paper takes an on going trend in Global Health action as a starting point in which a focus on 'frugal' technologies is anticipated to solve very specific diagnostic and therapeutic issues especially in developing countries. While this trend oddly resembles the 1970s/80s discourse on 'appropriate technologies' the programmatic realisation and implementation of novel Global Health technologies goes beyond this movement. Underlying this dynamics we find the assumption that a replication of costly and complex western health systems in resource poor settings is not only unrealistic to be achieved but even no longer desirable. The paper takes the empirical example of introduction of Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) in Uganda as a case in point to understand the implications not only for the diagnostic landscape but more important for the organisation of public health infrastructures. Inspired by an STS perspective I follow Peter Redfield's notion of "bio-expectations" which are inscribed in humanitarian goods that are designed to cater needs 'outside' Global Health. Here I will extend the analytical scope and ask what happens when these technologies become integrated as viable part of a state public health system. Additionally I will contrast my results with Lakoff's two regimes of Global Health (humanitarism/security) and ask if this division still holds purchase for the more systemic scope and implications of 'frugal' Global Health technologies.