Film Synopsis: The Fever

The Covid crisis – and the rush for a vaccine – has overshadowed many other health emergencies around the world. Despite millions of pounds of investment and decades of medical research, malaria still accounts for the deaths of at least half a million people every year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. The cost of treatment, when it is available, traps families in a cycle of illness, suffering and poverty, while the wider impact of the illness has continued to negatively affect the health of many national economies. Yet nobody in the pharmaceutical industry, the World Health Organisation, or its biggest donor, the Gates Foundation, seems to trust – or fund –African scientists to develop their own solutions.

The Fever, however, provides a hopeful account of the work carried out by researchers and health practitioners in Kenya and Uganda, who are determined to challenge the colonialist dynamics of global health and develop local solutions. This is a study of greed and courage – the outcome of which could save millions of lives.

Content notes:
Contains references to and personal accounts of child and infant mortality.

Screened as part of TOAFF20