Photos from a project conducted in collaboration with photographer Pearl Gan at EOCRU in Jakarta, Indonesia were published last week in the Lancet. The See Malaria in Asia Project aims to raise public awareness of malaria as a serious health problem for the region by telling the human story of Asia’s invisible malaria burden.
Most malaria in Asia occurs among the rural poor, who do not yet live among the benefits of the profound economic progress that the region has seen. These populations are often “invisible”, not only in an epidemiological sense but also in social terms. And therefore communities who are engaged with the global malaria problem do not see all those affected by malaria in Asia.
Funded by the Wellcome Trust, this photography project aims to engage the public with exhibitions later in the year in Jakarta, Singapore, Phnomh Penh and Ho Chi Minh City. While working on the project, photographer Pearl Gan visited remote communities where endemic malaria causes illness and deaths. EOCRU Director Prof Kevin Baird says, “Pearl Gan captures much in her art – humanity, dignity, suffering. Her lens exposes the reality of the isolation and poverty that give malaria such freedom of harm and constraint of human development.”