Avian Reservoirs is a fascinating and timely ethnography on bird flu prevention in East Asia. The author, Frédéric Keck, has taken a unique approach to the field of global health that is rich with theoretical insights and fresh methods. He also enriches our understanding of how global health concerns have shaped relations between China and its neighbors. The publication of this ethnography in early 2020, just as the novel coronavirus was emerging in China, makes it an important text for thinking about the current crisis in global health.
The avian flu preparations in East Asia that are central to this book were conducted in the shadow of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic in 2003. This viral predecessor to the current pandemic began in southern China, where the virus jumped from bats to humans and spread to twenty-nine countries in total, infecting more than 8,000 individuals before being contained....
