181–190 of 289 posts
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I can't help being annoyed by how the West first exterminated malaria at home, and then , once they were safe, started worrying about the ecological consequences of doing the same in Africa.
During cabin decompression, you put your oxygen mask on first, then help others.
This is not the most effective malaria vaccine. Three doses of intravenous PfSPZ-CVac is more effective. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21060
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I was born in Nigeria. I barely remember it, but what I can remember, is being constantly told how bad it was. It's entirely possible that my parents had an unreasoning fear of it. When we are kids, they are our source of Truth. I also remember my sister getting caught in one of those 'squito swarms, near the Delta. That was freaking awful. Uganda was a bit worse; but we also had other things to be scared of. I shoul…
Well then, nice to meet a fellow Nigerian :) Ebola is a recent thing AFAIK, so it would make sense that no one was freaking out about it when you were a kid. To be fair, it does sound like you were in rural Nigeria, so my Malaria experience is likely different from yours
But I'm still here. I seem to have survived.
My African friends would run around barefoot over the most God-awful crap, and were some of the healthiest people I've ever known.
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> If we left sars-covid-19 without mitigation for a century, it would catch up rapidly. I think that's probably wrong? The most likely outcome would be that after the initial pandemic subsided (with lots of deaths), most people would catch it when they were reasonably young and then be mostly protected. This is different from malaria, which is much more deadly.
>I think that's probably wrong? The most likely outcome would be that after the initial pandemic subsided (with lots of deaths), most people would catch it when they were reasonably young and then be mostly protected. Then why hasn't that happened with malaria?
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> If we left sars-covid-19 without mitigation for a century, it would catch up rapidly. I think that's probably wrong? The most likely outcome would be that after the initial pandemic subsided (with lots of deaths), most people would catch it when they were reasonably young and then be mostly protected. This is different from malaria, which is much more deadly.
It is as yet unclear how long effective immunity lasts after catching the disease, but pessimistic estimates put it at less than six months. While the pessimistic estimates are likely wrong (hence the term "pessimistic"), there certainly isn't confidence in the sort of lifelong immunity that one gets to some other contagions. Part of what's so exciting about the vaccines is that the antibodies seem to decay at a slow…
If that were the case we would see large amounts of re-infection, since the pandemic started over a year ago
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I grew up in Africa. We weren't as scared of Ebola, as we were, of good old Malaria. It's also the gift that keeps on giving. Once you get it, it does a reunion tour, every now and then, for the rest of your life. At the dinner table, we (expats) used to have a bowl of quinine tablets, set out like a condiment. I really hope this works out, because, thanks to climate change, the lower 48 may get a chance to find some…
I dont know what part of Africa you grew up in, but growing up in Nigeria, no one was scared of Malaria. It is treated pretty much the same way Americans treat getting the Flu
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Malaria used to be common in the US until the 1950s or so. It was eradicated through extensive mosquito control and engineering efforts. Rich countries can cope; it's the developing world that's thoroughly boned, at least until industrial capabilities catch up.
I can't help being annoyed by how the West first exterminated malaria at home, and then , once they were safe, started worrying about the ecological consequences of doing the same in Africa.
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Although some posts suggest that the USA may experience malaria at some point in the future because of global warming; in actuality, the USA has already experienced malaria. In 1882, the range of malaria in the USA extended from the Canadian border on the north to southern border with Mexico on the south. The only states of the current 48 contiguous states unaffected were Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Main, Vermont,…
There's a reason the CDC is in Atlanta.
What blows me away is in a study group of 734 infants, which benefited from maternal antibodies against malaria, 717 were infected by malaria in the first year of their life. That's nearly 100%, in the first year since birth. That's devastating. The vaccine is showing 77% efficacy in trials in Burkina Faso. That's an ongoing pandemic that makes covid-19 look like a case of the sniffles. Malaria deaths peaked around 9…
Covid-19 is a baby bike with training wheels. And we fail disastrously at that. It is far from the worse scenario epidemiologists train for, but it could easily become one: a variant with high lethality can always appear suddenly. And yes, malaria is not discussed enough. I remember Bill Gates releasing mosquitos in a room before a speech to get the public attention "these could carry a deadly disease we have no cure…
A more deadly virus, as we saw with SARS, was that it was actually easier to control because the high death rate made it very easy to contact trace and identify infected.
In many ways covid19 is a challenge exactly because it doesnt kill too many people.