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An 'epidemic' is defined as an increase in cases of disease over and above what would normally be expected in a community or region during a specified period. War, displacement, poverty and natural disasters are frequently associated with epidemics, and it is not unusual for humanitarian agencies to be called upon to prevent or contain them, especially in resource-poor settings. Although there is a considerable body of literature critiquing the work of humanitarian agencies on epidemics, it would be misleading to generalize too readily from cases of failure. There are many instances in which they have prevented the occurrence of epidemics, but these achievements have rarely been recorded in any detail and they are hard to assess comparatively. This chapter does not, therefore, attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of humanitarian engagement with epidemics. Instead, the first part of the chapter presents three case studies from Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo – DRC), Haiti and Somalia. These case studies look behind the narratives of 'failure' and 'success' to explore salient issues which routinely arise for humanitarian agencies working in challenging circumstances. The second part of the chapter then turns to the largest humanitarian programme ever attempted to control an epidemic: the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa between 2013 and 2016. In so doing, it becomes evident that humanitarian programmes, which adapt and respond to the specific social, political and economic contexts in which they are working, tend to be more effective. It is also clear that the nature of humanitarian engagement with epidemics is increasingly being shaped by narratives linking infectious diseases with global security.

The recent Ebola epidemic provides a dramatic example of the devastation and fear generated by epidemics, particularly those caused by new emerging or reemerging diseases. A focus on the control and prevention of diseases in living populations dominates most epidemic disease research. However, research on epidemics in the past provides a temporal depth to our understanding of the context and consequences of diseases and is crucial for predicting how diseases might shape human biology and demography in the future. This article reviews recent research on historic epidemics of plague and tuberculosis, both of which have affected human populations for millennia. Research on these diseases demonstrates the range (and differential availability) of various lines of evidence (e.g., burial context, diagnostic skeletal lesions, molecular data) that inform about past disease in general. I highlight how research on past epidemics may be informative in ways that benefit living populations.

AbstractIn the 1903 text Madar al-Zar (The Damages of Zar), Egyptian writer Muhammad Hilmi Zayn al-Din decried the growing popularity of zar rituals and the superstitious women who participated in them as an epidemic ravaging his country. This article employs Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb's method of "epidemiological reading" to reveal and analyze the racial and imperial anxieties that underlie this understudied text. The article begins with a summary of Madar al-Zar and an account of the sociopolitical context in which it was published. It then pulls back the surface layers of the text to reveal that the "disease" running rampant in early twentieth-century Egypt was not zar, but the scourge of African enslavement and the ever-looming specter of Egypt's imperial desires in Sudan. The article concludes with a meditation on zar as an archive of African dispossession, displacement, and resilience.

As COVID-19 drags on and new vaccines promise widespread immunity, the world's attention has turned to predicting how the present pandemic will end. How do societies know when an epidemic is over and normal life can resume? What criteria and markers indicate such an end? Who has the insight, authority, and credibility to decipher these signs? Detailed research on past epidemics has demonstrated that they do not end suddenly; indeed, only rarely do the diseases in question actually end. This article examines the ways in which scholars have identified and described the end stages of previous epidemics, pointing out that significantly less attention has been paid to these periods than to origins and climaxes. Analysis of the ends of epidemics illustrates that epidemics are as much social, political, and economic events as they are biological; the "end," therefore, is as much a process of social and political negotiation as it is biomedical. Equally important, epidemics end at different times for different groups, both within one society and across regions. Multidisciplinary research into how epidemics end reveals how the end of an epidemic shifts according to perspective, whether temporal, geographic, or methodological. A multidisciplinary analysis of how epidemics end suggests that epidemics should therefore be framed not as linear narratives-from outbreak to intervention to termination-but within cycles of disease and with a multiplicity of endings.

As COVID‐19 drags on and new vaccines promise widespread immunity, the world's attention has turned to predicting how the present pandemic will end. How do societies know when an epidemic is over and normal life can resume? What criteria and markers indicate such an end? Who has the insight, authority, and credibility to decipher these signs? Detailed research on past epidemics has demonstrated that they do not end suddenly; indeed, only rarely do the diseases in question actually end. This article examines the ways in which scholars have identified and described the end stages of previous epidemics, pointing out that significantly less attention has been paid to these periods than to origins and climaxes. Analysis of the ends of epidemics illustrates that epidemics are as much social, political, and economic events as they are biological; the "end," therefore, is as much a process of social and political negotiation as it is biomedical. Equally important, epidemics end at different times for different groups, both within one society and across regions. Multidisciplinary research into how epidemics end reveals how the end of an epidemic shifts according to perspective, whether temporal, geographic, or methodological. A multidisciplinary analysis of how epidemics end suggests that epidemics should therefore be framed not as linear narratives—from outbreak to intervention to termination—but within cycles of disease and with a multiplicity of endings.

Epidemics and mortality in 15th and 16th century Florence, Italy, were investigated by use of records of the government-sponsored Dowry Fund. These records contain the date of birth, date of investment, and date of dowry payment or death of 19,000 girls and women. Major epidemics ("plagues") occurred repeatedly. The most severe were in 1430, 1437-38, 1449-50, 1478-79, and 1527-31. Annual death rates of girls enrolled in the Dowry Fund increased by 5 to 10 times in each of these periods. During the last period, at least 20-25 per cent of the population of Florence is likely to have died. Recurrent epidemics accounted for 38 per cent of the total mortality experienced by girls enrolled in the Dowry Fund. The frequency of serious epidemics diminished with the passage of time, and overall mortality declined by about 10 per cent over the 15th and 16th centuries. Epidermic mortality was not consistently related to age. The effects of epidemics were most severe in the summer and autumn. Non-epidemic mortality was also greater in the summer and autumn than in the winter and spring.

Anthropology's response to the West African Ebola epidemic was one of the most rapid and expansive anthropological interventions to a global health emergency in the discipline's history. This article sets forth the size and scale of the anthropological response and describes the protagonists, interventions, and priorities for anthropological engagement. It takes an inclusive approach to anthropological praxis by engaging with the work of nonanthropologist "allies," including qualitative researchers, social workers, and allied experts. The article narrates how the concept of "anthropology" came to serve as a semantic marker of solidarity with local populations, respect for customary practices and local sociopolitical realities, and an avowed belief in the capacities of local populations to lead localized epidemic prevention and response efforts. Of particular consideration is the range of complementary and conflicting epistemological, professional, and critical engagements held by anthropologists. The article also discusses how to assess anthropological "impact" in epidemics.