Vaccination in the Early PRC, 1949–58

Abstract

This chapter focuses on vaccination in the early years of the People's Republic of China. The 1949 establishment of the PRC formally ended the conflicts that had engulfed China for almost twenty years. However, the new nation was still in crisis. The People's Liberation Army continued to wage military campaigns in Tibet and Xinjiang, war loomed in Korea, and infectious diseases still threatened the country's population. In 1949, bubonic plague struck Tianjin and Beijing, and in the following year smallpox broke out in Shanghai. The establishment of national vaccination campaigns, first against smallpox in 1950 and then against tuberculosis, diphtheria, and other diseases in 1952, signaled a national commitment of the new regime to epidemic prevention. Such an achievement was possible, this chapter argues, because new systems of recordkeeping, surveillance, and accountability accompanied the implementation of public health policies. These programs built power over life by self-consciously protecting it from epidemic catastrophe.