Description
Special exhibition “Social Contagion”, Moesgård Museum, February 11 – May 14, 2017.
Jens Seeberg: Medicine resistant tuberculosis in India
The social contagion of drug resistance
Drug resistance develops when e.g. bacteria mutate and act against medicine. But such biological processes are not random. They follow the fault lines laid out by society and by our social interaction, where ideas about health and disease are translated into active treatment.
In this project in India I study the circumstances transforming a tuberculosis epidemic that can be treated with standard medicine, to one that is drug-resistant. This leads to a more difficult treatment with a much higher mortality. By talking to people suffering from multidrug resistant tuberculosis, I trace the circumstances most likely to have caused the disease to become resistant. And I get to understand how the fear and despair that also spread within their families affect their chances of survival.
Jens Seeberg: Medicinresistent tuberkulose i Indien
Medicinresistens som social smitte
Medicinresistens udvikles ved, at eksempelvis en bakterie muterer og bliver modstandsdygtig over for effekten af den medicin, der er udviklet til at slå den ihjel. Men sådanne biologiske processer er ikke tilfældige. De skabes i sociale interaktioner, når vores idéer om sygdom og sundhed omsættes til behandling i praksis.
I dette projekt undersøger jeg, hvordan en tuberkuloseepidemi i Indien går fra at være en sygdom, der kan behandles med standardmedicin, til at være medicinresistent med langt vanskeligere behandling og højere dødelighed til følge. Ved at tale med mennesker, som lider af multiresistent tuberkulose, undersøger jeg omstændigheder, der med stor sandsynlighed har gjort sygdommen resistent. Og jeg får mulighed for at forstå, hvordan angsten og fortvivlelsen, som også spredes i deres familier, påvirker deres chancer for at overleve.
Project Details
A film by: EPICENTER
EPICENTER explores the social life of epidemics – including cultural epidemics. The Centre aims to fill a gap in scientific as well as popular understandings of contagion, by asking: What is contagion? The traditional distinction between communicable and non-communicable diseases is challenged through research. Currently epidemics of non-communicable diseases are spreading, but the social dynamics of how these diseases spread are poorly theorized.
The Centre is currently hosting studies in Denmark, South Africa, Uganda, Siberia, Nepal, and Egypt on cancer, HIV, diabetes, drug addiction, trauma, suicide, migration, prevention and treatment regimes.
The Centre will be a platform of communication between researchers and the public through museum exhibitions.
For more information visit: http://epicenter.au.dk