by John Lwanda

About John Lwanda

John Lwanda, an honorary senior research fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences and Institute of Health and Wellbeing at Glasgow University, is the author of Politics, Culture and Medicine in Malawi: Historical Continuities and Ruptures with Special Reference to HIV/AIDS.

Virus

book Keywords for Health Humanities

The polysemous virus carries a number of in-built contradictions for such a critical keyword. Yet it seems “intuitive” in all its senses, from malign to benign. Although virus is a keyword in diverse fields, from science and medicine to popular culture and technology, despite different meanings, the underlying concepts are similar: viruses suggest uncontrolled proliferation, as in the “viral” spread of disease and the “viral” contamination of computers.