Date: 11 December 2009
Time: 11:30am - 1:00 pm
Venue: Cheung Kung Hai Conference Centre, G/F, William M.W. Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

The language and narrative forms we use to discuss communicable disease can have real and crucial consequences in the world. This forum, organized by the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine in collaboration with the Institute of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, explored the role of communication in health crises, with a particular focus on epidemics. Participants from a range of backgrounds, including medicine, government, journalism and cultural studies, considered the challenges posed to scientific, media and popular coverage of contagious diseases by new technologies of communication, changing socio-cultural environments, and developments in our understanding of the epidemiology and biology of infections.

Participants included: Prof Gabriel Leung (Under Secretary for Food and Health of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR), Prof Priscilla Wald (Dept of English, Duke University), Prof Richard Fielding (School of Pubic Health, HKU), Dr Esther Cheung (Dept of Comparative Literature, HKU), Dr Frédéric Keck (CNRS, Paris).