Medical Mapping, Burkitt's Lymphoma, and the East African Virus Research Institute, 1962-1979

The discovery of Burkitt’s lymphoma (BL), a childhood cancer that appeared to be limited to particular parts of Africa and caused by a virus, attracted a range of researchers with a stake in the field of cancer viruses to Uganda. Between 1962 and 1979, the East African Virus Research Institute (EAVRI), a laboratory founded in Entebbe in 1936, conducted a series of investigations into the etiology of the lymphoma. This research took place in a period of intense change at the Institute and in Uganda in general, coinciding with the advent of national independence, the first administration of a Ugandan president, and the rise and fall of Idi Amin. These changes cast uncertainty onto the future of the EAVRI. Drawing on oral histories, archives, and published material, this paper examines the cartographic practices of the EAVRI’s research on BL, both in the preliminary exploratory stage and in the later cohort study. These investigations offer a window into the use of medical maps to configure independent Uganda as a valuable site of medical research and to tease out the relationship between cancer, a putative infectious agent, and the natural and social environment. This story sheds light on the negotiation of the roles of EAVRI’s African and expatriate researchers, international visiting scientists, the study populations in West Nile, Uganda, missionaries, government officials, and a wide array of intermediaries. It also highlights the ways that scientists in Uganda invested in strategies that would facilitate new research programs in the post-colonial period.