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Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

theguardian.com

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Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#91

Post by stubish »

ChefboyOG wrote: post #8
Crazyontap wrote: post #5

I watched a Ted talk sometime ago about how they've discovered a method to genetically modify mosquitoes to eradicate entire populations of mosquitoes from an area (I think it was it made them mos babies die due to genetic engineering). I couldn't find it now but it seemed like a massive success at the time almost eliminating all mosquitoes from the a city in Brazil (iirc). Anyone know what happened to it? If that we…

This kind of experiment is called a gene drive, and there's a huge debate in scientific communities right now around whether it's responsible or not to use them, particularly around the mosquito problem. A professor of mine who works in the field was discussing this with us last week. The idea with mosquitoes specifically is that we can wipe out specifically the mosquito populations that carry most diseases. The deba…

A problem is the discussion almost immediately derails into the eradication of all mosquitos, such as almost immediately happened right here. My understanding of these experiments is it is the eradication of particular subspecies of mosquitos, the ones able to transmit malaria, dengue fever, zika etc. And the difference is huge; wipe out a dozen subspecies and their ecological niches will be filled by other subspecies of mosquito.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#92

Post by warent »

mmsimanga wrote: post #82
eps wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you had newborn jaundice, which is unrelated to hepatitis and quite common.

I was probably between 5 and 7 years old. I remember because my village gang were fascinated with how yellow my urine was. It is the one time I can say I won the pissing contest :-).

That is awesome! Not to go too far off topic here but I sense that you must have an absolutely remarkable life story

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#93

Post by stubish »

maxerickson wrote: post #68
sszz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are legitimate concerns about efficacy (there’s research that suggests that evolution will help mosquitoes escape the gene drive effect, making it useful for only a short period of time) and about unknown ecological consequences (knocking out a primary food source in an ecosystem can have devastating health and economic consequences). That’s not to say it’s not worth it, but it is worth debating and figuring ou…

Which ecosystem are human-biting mosquitoes a primary food source in?

Its not even human-biting... it is the handful of species capable of transmitting certain diseases and parasites, out of thousands of other mosquito species waiting to fill the empty ecological niches.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#94

Post by stubish »

csunbird wrote: post #87
wolco wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could be killing 100,000 people a day if things go differently than you expect. Caution is in order.

I am not sure why this is downvoted, this is a legit point. If we eradicate mosquitos and they evolve to survive while creating another problem other than malaria, you literally can end up killing 100000 people every day instead of 1000.

Nobody has a way of eradicating mosquitoes. Particular species of mosquitoes are what is being targeted.

It is inconceivable to me how eradicating the malaria parasite by eradicating a few of the thousands of species of mosquitoes could end up killing hundreds of thousands of people every day. The much more likely scenario is that doing nothing allows the malaria parasite to evolve into something much more deadly (and that is pretty unlikely, given how long malaria has been around).

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#95

Post by stubish »

mc32 wrote: post #49
bohm wrote: post #46

Ok translation: Ivermectin, a safe and well-tolerated bacteria-derived insecticide already used in humans, can kill mosquitoes. By feeding humans ivermectin, mosquito populations can be reduced, which in turn reduces spread of the malaria parasite which is transported via mosquitoes.

Does it work with West Nile, Zika, EEE and other mosquito borne diseases too? If so that’d be even better news on top of good. Do the downvotes mean this blood medicine does not affect these mosquitoes?

The study looks completely focused on the malaria parasite and malaria carrying species, so we don't know for sure.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#96

Post by TheGallopedHigh »

wolco wrote: post #73
mullingitover wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is just my interpretation, but it seems like there is a sensible portion of detractors who simply want to derisk the experiment as much as possible by collecting more and more data. This is so infuriating. Many people will die during this extended hemming and hawing. Humans have driven countless important species to extinction with no thought, but we have to vacillate over a species that is responsible for mor…

What makes you think they won't come back as bad or worse then before? That's what we did with antibiotics and we ended up with superbugs.

I think we can safely say the trade off of having antibiotics and a few superbugs, as opposed to no antibiotics where all bugs are superbugs was a good trade off.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#97

Post by mleonhard »

tbabb wrote: post #22

This article is so bad it's basically saying nothing at all, and the headline is basically unsupported by the article. In fact, the quality/coherence of the whole thing seems to be about on par with those AI-generated articles from OpenAI a few months ago. This article shouldn't be here, let alone under this headline.

Yes, the article refers to ivermectin as a bacteria. Ivermectin is a drug that kills parasites. If ivermectin actuall is effective against malaria, I would like to ask why did it take 40 years to discover this?!?

Ivermectin causes severe reactions in people with onchocerciasis (River Blindness) unless treated carefully. Now that oncho is nearly eradicated, deploying ivermectin widely has become easier.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#99

Post by maxerickson »

wolco wrote: post #75
maxerickson wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ecosystem are human-biting mosquitoes a primary food source in?

The unknown ecosystem changes are concerning. A few years ago someone might say kill all bees kids are dying. We know better now.

In most places, honeybees are introduced livestock, not a 'natural' part of the ecosystem.

Re: Malaria breakthrough as scientists find ‘highly effective’ way to kill parasite

#100

Post by bo1024 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #64
bo1024 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visited malaria country recently and was told by doctors that most people growing up there end up with constant low levels of the malaria parasite (like 1-2% of red blood cells maybe) that their bodies have just learned to live with. Not exactly immunity.

> ... their bodies have just learned to live with. Not exactly immunity Doesn't exactly sound like lack of immunity either. I mean, completely non immune people just die.

Agreed!
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