This essay discusses several books, ancient and recent, on plagues to ask the question: Can we face death without turning away from it through historical narration? Can we write about death, which only afflicts individuals, without stripping death of its individuality? After briefly addressing these questions, I discuss five books, one from the ancient period (Thucydides’s Peloponnesian War), one from the late medieval period (Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron), one from the early modern period (Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year), and two from the modern period (Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, and Frank Snowden’s Epidemics and Society). These books not only come from different eras but also reflect different written responses to death—ancient history, story/fable, reportage, futuristic novel, and contemporary history. The essay concludes by considering a counterargument to its focus on death, an argument developed by Baruch Spinoza which claims that humans should think nothing less than of death.

The development of a regional control strategy for the red locust, Nomadacris septemfasciata (Serville) began in the 1920s during a period when red, desert and African migratory locust swarms were widespread in Africa. The strategy involved controlling locusts in their permanent breeding areas to prevent swarms escaping over a much larger invasion area and damaging crops and pasture. Mapping and analysis of reports at the Imperial Institute of Entomology in London and field research in the Rukwa and Mweru wa Ntipa areas confirmed the location of two important red locust outbreak areas, and by the mid-1930s implementation of a preventative control strategy became a practical proposition. Regional control against red locusts formally came into being in 1941 under impetus from the Belgian and British Governments and collaborative surveying and control work continued despite the Second World War. Locust swarm activity intensified in the mid 1940s and other outbreak areas were found, raising the profile of the threat red locusts posed to food security. As a result, international collaboration in research, control and information dissemination was formalised in 1945 through the formation of the IRLCO-CSA.

The International Red Locust Control Service (IRLCS) was formally established in 1949 with the primary objective of controlling locusts in their outbreak areas, thereby preventing the recurrence of plagues. The name of IRLCS was subsequently changed in 1970 to the International Red Locust Control Organisation for Central and Southern Africa (IRLCO-CSA), but retained the same objectives. Over the years, IRLCO-CSA has experienced changes in membership and locations of its Headquarters and operational centres. Its principle mandate has remained the same even though it has been modified and rationalised from time to time. The organisation carried out investigations that led to the identification of the red locust outbreak areas and the development of various control technologies. Control methods developed from the original physical ones which were laborious and inefficient; to insecticide dusting and baiting; to the spraying by aircraft. In its history of locust control programmes, IRLCO-CSA has used arsenic compounds, BHC, DNOC, dieldrin and fenitrothion as insecticides. The success that IRLCO-CSA has enjoyed in its 50 years history has been thanks to the cooperation of countries in eastern, central and southern Africa which are vulnerable to attack by the red locust, and the international community.