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The Basic Structure as Object: Institutions and Humanitarian Concern1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Leif Wenar
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Extract

One third of the human species is infested with worms. The World Health Organization estimates that worms account for 40 per cent of the global disease burden from tropical diseases excluding malaria. Worms cause a lot of misery.

In this article I will focus on one particular type of infestation, which is hookworm. Approximately 740 million people suffer from hookworm infection in areas of rural poverty: more than one human in ten, a total greater than twenty-three times the population of Canada or twice the population of the United States. The greatest numbers of cases occur in China, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa- that is, mostly in the places in the world where poverty is most severe.

Hookworm larvae pierce the skin, enter the bloodstream, work their way into the heart and then into the lungs, where they climb the bronchial tree into the throat and are swallowed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 31: Global Justice, Global Institutions , 2005 , pp. 253 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2005

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Footnotes

1

This paper was first presented at the Pacific APA Conference on Global Justice in March 2004. Many thanks go to Daniel Weinstock, and to Paul Clements for his guidance on development aid.

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