Introduction to the special section: Histories of Global Health in Africa.

Global health is a multidisciplinary field, yet rarely productively incorporates historical knowledge. Local historical processes, interactions with past biomedical campaigns, and dynamic ecological narratives shape how disease outbreaks, health crises, and international interventions are received and remembered. The residues and afterlives of past interactions influence contemporary understandings. We argue for a broadening of the types of knowledge that are integrated into global health research, interventions, and policymaking by paying attention to project afterlives and better integrating forms of vernacular knowledge. Recognizing, understanding, respecting, and incorporating this knowledge is critical to the efficacy of global health-related interventions and the resulting outcomes.

Wandering epizootics and zones of emergence: Constructing yellow fever endemicity in Africa.

This paper examines the distinction drawn between endemic and epidemic yellow fever in the twentieth century and the policy implications of conceptualizing yellow fever as distinct in different world regions. The history of yellow fever research in Africa reveals how particular perceptions of place undergirded evolving scientific knowledge of yellow fever epidemiology. Efforts to map yellow fever endemicity in Africa and to understand the endemic threat of "jungle" yellow fever unfolded within a colonial framework that viewed Africa and Africans as "diseased." The study explores how the notions of place embedded in endemic versus epidemic disease translated into differential prevention strategies and access to vaccines leading to highly unequal burdens of yellow fever. The history of yellow fever research in Africa is potentially instructive for a range of health threats that have historically been mapped onto places and peoples in ways that privilege differential policy pathways.