Abstract

BLAIR, Silvia. Challenges for the elimination of malaria in Colombia: A problem of knowledge or of power. Biomédica [online]. 2012, vol.32, suppl.1, pp.31-148. ISSN 0120-4157.

Introduction. Practices to end malaria in the world have evolved from the sanitary control programs, known in Colombia as the fight for hygiene, in the early twentieth century, to the eradication efforst in the 5´s and back to control in 1978. Today, after 43 years of failure of the malaria eradication program, the World Health Organization proposes its members a program to eliminate malaria malaria with eradication in view. Will this be possible in Colombia? Objective. To review the possibilities of eliminating malaria in Colombia, from a historical analysis of the knowledge and practices developed to reach this aim. Results. We present the obstacles and opportunities for the development of a malaria elimination program in Colombia, where the etiopathogenic model of infectious diseases, based on the germ theory, still remains valid and supports practices such as eradication. Conclusion. Eliminating malaria is not just a scientific problem of the gaps in knowledge, but a way of supporting that knowledge with a single theory, the microbial or the etiopathogenic theory, to explain diseases such as malaria; it is also a problem of power. Even though the political power can be a form of knowledge, understanding it as a mixture of strategies and interests of the institutions that dictate the public policies, the international agencies, the companies selling sellers of insecticides and antimalarials and the producers of new reagents and diagnostic tools.

Keywords : malaria; public health; sanitation.

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