Programs for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as sleeping sickness increasingly involve patients and community workers in syndromic case detection with little exploration of patient understandings of symptoms. Drawing on concepts from sensorial anthropology, I investigate peoples' experiences of sleeping sickness in South Sudan. People here sense the disease through discourses about four symptoms (pain, sleepiness, confusion and hunger) using biomedical and ethnophysiological concepts and sensations of risk in the post-conflict environment. When identified together, the symptoms interlock as a complete disease, prompting people to seek hospital-based care. Such local forms of sense-making enable diagnosis and help control programs function.
BT - Medical anthropology C1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31852244 DA - 12/2019 DO - 10.1080/01459740.2019.1689976 J2 - Med Anthropol LA - eng N2 -Programs for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as sleeping sickness increasingly involve patients and community workers in syndromic case detection with little exploration of patient understandings of symptoms. Drawing on concepts from sensorial anthropology, I investigate peoples' experiences of sleeping sickness in South Sudan. People here sense the disease through discourses about four symptoms (pain, sleepiness, confusion and hunger) using biomedical and ethnophysiological concepts and sensations of risk in the post-conflict environment. When identified together, the symptoms interlock as a complete disease, prompting people to seek hospital-based care. Such local forms of sense-making enable diagnosis and help control programs function.
PY - 2019 SP - 1 EP - 17 T2 - Medical anthropology TI - Sensing Sleeping Sickness: Local Symptom-Making in South Sudan. SN - 1545-5882 ER -