The Political Life of an Epidemic: Cholera, Crisis, and Citizenship in Zimbabwe Chigudu, Simukai Cambridge University Press: New York, 2020. |Includes bibliographical references and index. pp. 299. LCCN 2019042514 (ebook)|

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• Author: Sesan Michael Johnson
• Date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.551

DOI: 10.1002/wmh3.551

BOOK REVIEW

The Political Life of an Epidemic: Cholera,

Crisis, and Citizenship in Zimbabwe

Chigudu, Simukai

Cambridge University Press: New York, 2020. |Includes bibliographical references and index. pp. 299. LCCN 2019042514

(ebook)|

Simukai Chigudu's The Political Life of Cholera: Cholera, Crisis and Citizenship in Zimbabwe

examines Zimbabwe's catastrophic cholera outbreak of 2008–2009, which caused more than

100,000 cases and nearly 5000 deaths. The book answers three key questions. First, what were

the historical and political–economic factors that account for the origins and scale of the cholera

outbreak? Second, how did different organizational entities, communities, and individuals act in

response to the outbreak? Third, how has the cholera outbreak been committed to historical

memory and what political subjectivities have the epidemic generated?

Chigudu's analyses and frameworks cut across epidemiology, political science,

technology, and infrastructural studies, as well as medical sociology and anthropology.

The interdisciplinary nature of the study is not surprising considering the training of the

author, first as a physician and public health expert, and later as an African studies and

international development scholar.

Historical events have both remote and immediate causes, and the cholera epidemic is

no exception. In a narrow biological sense, cholera is an acute bacterial infection of the

intestine caused by the ingestion of food or water contaminated by certain strains of the

organism, Vibrio cholerae. For Chigudu, beyond biological causality, Zimbabwe's cholera

epidemic was remotely caused by deficits in infrastructure. Chigudu traces the historical

roots of these deficits to exploitative policies of the country's former colonial government in

health and hydraulic sectors.

Chigudu argues that total collapse of the health system contributed to the spread of the

epidemic in Harare and the Zimbabwean suburbs. Where clinical coverage was inadequate

throughout much of the country, patients were forced to travel long distances for treatments.

In addition, there were critical shortages of essential medicines while frequent electricity

outages prevented the use of hospital machinery. Basic equipment such as disposable

gloves, syringes, rehydration fluids, and bandages were in short supply. In addition, the

health‐care workforce's welfare was not taken seriously, which led to exodus of skilled

workers. Chigudu also posits that poor surveillance was also a causal factor. He shows how

cholera was able to spread undetected throughout Zimbabwe, rendering health profes-

sionals unable to provide timely treatments to those in need. Further complicating the

situation was Zimbabwe's disastrous economic downturn which increased the vulnerability

of the populace to cholera through food insecurity and malnutrition. Therefore, Zimbabwe's

political conflicts and economic crisis prepared the foundations for the proliferation of

cholera outbreaks in the country.

As Chigudu explains, Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic was followed by political contests. The

epidemic was first greeted by government's denial of that there even was an outbreak. In the

same manner, the government's actions were characterized with ambivalence towards poor

people. For example, limited effort was made to improve the water system. The epidemic

World Med. & Health Policy. 2023;15:696–697.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/wmh3696

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