The Health of Nations: The Campaign to End Polio and Eradicate Epidemic Diseases

In this timely but bland account, British journalist and filmmaker Bartlett (Dusty: Lost Icon) chronicles several international campaigns to eradicate contagious diseases such as polio, smallpox, and Ebola. Focusing on the long, expensive, contentious fight against polio, Bartlett discusses the politics of immunization as well as the cultural and religious barriers to locating and immunizing the unvaccinated 2% of the world’s children. She tries to impart a sense of the hardships health professionals face, but her lackluster writing fails to bring her heroic subjects to life. Disease eradication, she argues, was a 20th-century dream. Now, religious intolerance and factionalism have put that dream at risk. While smallpox was eradicated in 1979, all other campaigns have “ended in failure.” Despite sustained efforts by international health organizations and wealthy philanthropists, world disease continues to plague the young and the impoverished; Bartlett points out that although tropical diseases account for 90% of the global disease burden, they receive about 10% of the research funds. She also covers battles to eliminate malaria, yellow fever, and Guinea worm, though they’re not considered contagious diseases. Readers who follow world news will find little here that’s surprising or heartening. Agent: Gaia Banks, Sheil Land Associates (U.K.). (Apr.)