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Article: Onchocerciasis in Chiapas, Mexico. (river blindness)
- Article from:
- The Geographical Review
- Article date:
- April 1, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 American Geographical Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ONCHOCERCIASIS, or river blindness, is commonly associated with Africa (Hunter 1966), but the disease also affects an estimated 100,000 persons in Latin America, with clusters of incidence in Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela (Shelley 1988). The disease was probably transmitted from Africa by the slave trade and established itself in Latin America in zones with appropriate ecological conditions (Ruiz Reyes 1952). This article examines the coevolution of onchocerciasis and a regional landscape in Mexico. The underlying components that help define the onchocerciasis system there are linked to population mobility and landscape change. Both these ...