Between love to animals and public health: Sociological reflections on canine visceral leishmaniosis

Abstract

Animals have always been part of human societies, whether as a source of food, as sacred entities, as companies or as goods. Among the strands of studies on human and non-human animal relations, this article focuses on an aspect little investigated by the social sciences: the social dimension of policies to control diseases transmitted between humans and animals (zoonotic diseases). We analyzed the controversies and conflicts which occur between the socio-technical measures adopted by the epidemiological surveillance services for the control of this disease and the meanings attributed to this control by zoonoses surveillance professionals and the media, taking as a case study the public actions of control of canine visceral leishmaniasis developed in Florianópolis, SC, Brazil, between 2010 and 2020. The low effectiveness of public control policies is related to the lack of coordination between epidemiological and social factors (related to multi-species families) in preventive campaigns.