221–230 of 289 posts
I'd like to urge everyone to consider contributing to cost-effective charities that work on alleviating the scourge of malaria. GiveWell, a charity evaluator recommends Malaria Consortium and Against Malaria Foundation as cost-effective ways to directly reduce instances of malaria. https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
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…
Yet there seems to be no better alternative for simple mosquito nets when it comes to safe, efficient way of protecting ourselves from mosquitoes.
P.S. I've been tracking mosquito control strategies, it's the very first problem I posted on my problem validation platform - https://needgap.com/problems/6-safe-affordable-and-efficient...
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Afaik mosquitoes don’t really contribute ecologically. They are just nuisance.
I recall a town in Texas decided to wipe out the local bat population due to fear of rabies. The next year they had a major scourge of mosquitoes. Turns out bats mostly eat mosquitoes. They let the bats resettle the area. Bats eat tons of mosquitoes. Some outfits encourage and help people set up bat friendly enclosures to deal with local mosquito problems.
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>That's an ongoing pandemic that makes covid-19 look like a case of the sniffles How? There are literally 3 times more deaths in the last year than peak Malaria, and that's only deaths that were actually counted.
Covid's victims are mostly in their 70s and above. Malaria's victims are mostly under 5 years of age. In terms of life-years lost, Malaria is far far worse.
You also have to take into account the health of those involved. Saving a life only for that person to live a few low quality years in poor health is worth less than saving the life of a healthy young child.
The resulting measure is the QALY, the quality adjusted life year.
Unfortunately there has not been nearly enough research or discussion about QALYs and their applicability to the coronavirus. There are a few studies out there, though, here's one: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4208
TLDR: the mean discounted QALYs lost by someone dying of the coronavirus in the US is 4.3.
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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…
> Once you get it, it does a reunion tour, every now and then, for the rest of your life. Maybe only certain strains of malaria do that? I had malaria many years ago. It was a very unpleasant experience, but I recovered in a couple of weeks with no lingering effects. Growing up in India, malaria was common. But I don't recall anyone living in terror of it. Mosquito nets, mosquito repellent incense, repellent cream, t…
Or at least I hope so. I lived in Tanzania for a few years and I got malaria (I think falciparum) a few times. The first time it was the worst headache I've ever experienced. By the third or fourth time, I barely noticed that I had it and yet it was at maybe 5x or more the concentration it was when I first contracted it.
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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,…
This is something that has confused me for a long time. America definitely has mosquitoes (I’m from Washington, DC). How are there mosquitoes but no malaria?
In fact, of the ~200 mosquito species which occur in the United States, only 12 are known spread any sort of human disease [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anopheles
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mosquitoes/about/mosquitoes-in-the-us.ht...
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Ah, that's why GiveWell rates mosquito netting so high. To think I could save a child with a thousand dollars.
Not to be too nit-picky, but a thousand dollars would help or save many children, not just one. $20 will get you a mosquito net on Amazon.
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Afaik mosquitoes don’t really contribute ecologically. They are just nuisance.
I recall a town in Texas decided to wipe out the local bat population due to fear of rabies. The next year they had a major scourge of mosquitoes. Turns out bats mostly eat mosquitoes. They let the bats resettle the area. Bats eat tons of mosquitoes. Some outfits encourage and help people set up bat friendly enclosures to deal with local mosquito problems.
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Agreed with the other responses. The main reason there are lots of malaria deaths is often due to the lack of access to medication but for folks that do, it is similar to the flu stateside. I was born and raised in Uganda and I'm shocked by this. Ebola was 100x more scary than malaria growing. At least way back before this recent vaccine. Get Ebola you are basically screwed, get malaria have a pill To be fair on your…
Japanese working abroad are expats wherever they are.