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This paper provides an overview of recent literature on the history of epidemics in East Asia, with a primary focus on modern and contemporary China, but including some discussion of the scholarship in English on epidemics in Korea and Japan. Key research strands are identified within the field: local and regional histories, disease biographies, histories of public health campaigns, global connections, and cultural representations. The paper argues that studies of epidemic disease have been central to debates about East Asian modernity, transformations of the state, the formation of a post-imperial citizenry, postcolonial science and technology studies, and East Asia's role in globalizing processes. The paper concludes by reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic and the issues it raises for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general tenor ofthis COVID-19 commentary was (a) that this was historyrepeating itself, notably bubonic plague in the 1890s and1900s and the influenza pandemic of 1918-19; (b) thathistory provided stern lessons and an urgent warning asto how, or more often how not, to handle a pandemic; and(c) that, even if history wasn't repeating itselfentirely, there were scenes, incidents and attitudes fromthe colonial era being reprised in thetwenty-first-century present. Do you see any resonances inthe current pandemic and the 1918 influenza pandemic inthe region? But perhapsthere is scope to look at the great pandemics of the past(since the 1880s) not in relation to the over-written,over-determined histories of the West but from across theGlobal South and across the imperial or postimperialterritories where plague, influenza, AIDS etc. so oftenstruck most and caused the greatest mortality (to befair, histories of the 1918 pandemic have begun to doprecisely this). Finally, COVID-19 has raised issues about therelationship between pandemics and crises (or thepandemic as crisis), which I think have importantimplications for colonial historians. [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines the temporal politics of the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that despite the emphasis on digital real-time coverage and epidemiological forecasting, the pandemic has been understood as a historical event, even as it has been unfolding. The paper considers the implications of this ambiguous temporality, suggesting that COVID-19 has made visible a new heterotemporality, wherein real time, history, and the future intermesh. The paper concludes by focusing on Hong Kong, a former British colony and Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China since 1997, showing how the pandemic has become an uncanny rendering of the city's uncertain future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the diffusion of the 1968 Hong Kong influenza pandemic against the backdrop of scientific and global health developments, a global wave of social protests, and Cold War tensions between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Although the outbreak was far less severe than the 1918–19 'Spanish' influenza pandemic, the ease with which influenza spread globally between 1968 and 1970 contributed to a reformulation of global health that emphasized the need for enhanced preparedness and rapid vaccine production. From the 1950s through the 1960s, the scope of disease surveillance expanded, with China increasingly identified as the global epicentre of viral threats. In so arguing, the article challenges histories of global health that suggest that this was a period when concerns for infectious disease receded, in contrast to the final two decades of the twentieth century that saw the ascendancy of an 'emerging diseases worldview'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Each year there are over one billion estimated new curable sexually transmitted infections [1]. This is a daunting number, especially in the face of dwindling public health resources and [...]

In recent years, research on the military deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, has proliferated. However, to date there has been little systematic study of how drones are being used for health surveillance and management, particularly in resource-constrained settings. In this paper, we draw on a number of case studies to explore how the biomedical drone is contributing to a re-spatialization of health and to a process of datafication that is set to fundamentally change the nature and scope of health governance. The promotion of the drone as a solution to global challenges reflects a broader techno-optimism. However, drones and the cybernetworks they rely on are short-circuiting terrestrial systems and driving a strategic, hotspot approach to health. This targeted view of the world, we argue, recapitulates and extends earlier forms of colonial surveillance and intervention premised on security and incipient threat. We develop the notion of 'anarchitecture' to describe the formation of these new inverted health landscapes where state infrastructures are entangled with shifting technological networks. In short, we seek to develop a framework for reflecting on the ways in which global health is being reconfigured through the development of remote-sensing technologies and cyberinfrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blinded techniques to desensitize the inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) include intraoral, angled, and vertical extraoral approaches with reported success rates of 100%, 73%, and 59%, respectively. It has not been determined whether an ultrasound-guided extraoral approach is feasible. Further, the fascicular nature of the inferior alveolar and lingual nerves of the horse has not been described. The objectives of this study were to describe a low-volume ultrasound-guided vertical extraoral inferior alveolar nerve block technique and to describe the fascicular nature of these nerves. An ultrasound-guided approach to the IAN was conducted with a microconvex transducer and an 18-G, 15-cm spinal needle using a solution containing iodinated-contrast and methylene blue dye. Accuracy was assessed by contrast visualized at the mandibular foramen on computed tomography (CT) and methylene blue dye staining of the nerves on gross dissection. Sections of inferior alveolar and lingual nerves were submitted for histological analysis. Assessment by CT and dissection determined success rates of 81.3% and 68.8%, respectively; 68.8% of injections had inadvertent methylene blue dye staining of the lingual nerve. Nerve histology revealed both the inferior alveolar and lingual nerves to be multifascicular in nature. Mean fascicle counts for the inferior alveolar and lingual nerves were 29 and 30.8, respectively. The technique is challenging and no more accurate than previously published blinded techniques. Any extraoral approach to the IAN is likely to also desensitize the lingual nerve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China's Hubei province continues and new cases of the disease increase globally,[1] there is pressure on historians to show the value of history for policy. The designation of the new virus as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses[8] recognises it as genetically related to but different from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronaviruses (SARS-CoVs). 11 R Zhong, P Mozur, To tame coronavirus, Mao-style social control blankets China. [Extracted from the article]