"The return of typhoid is something of a shock to health systems in richer countries. Between the late 19th century and the 1950s, sanitary improvements, effective vaccines and antibiotics eliminated endemic typhoid from most high-income countries. But after a lifetime of relative security, the prospect of typhoid again causing death in high-income hospitals is no longer an outlandish idea.
So how did this happen? The answer is uncomfortable and tied up in the inward-looking nature of Western disease eradication campaigns over the last century. Because, contrary to popular conceptions of typhoid as a disease of the past, typhoid never really left. As our new research shows, because typhoid control often stopped at high-income borders, it became a neglected disease in other, poorer countries. This global neglect is now proving costly."
Read the full article on The Conversation website, written by Claas Kirchhelle, Oxford Martin School, and Samantha Vanderslott, Department of Paediatrics.
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