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The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

blogs.sciencemag.org

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Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#241

Post by himinlomax »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #228
WalterBright wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well bats certainly haven’t caused us any major global health problems recently...

While the bat origin of Covid 19 is plausible, it hasn't been conclusively demonstrated. The gain of function lab leak is just as plausible, and equally unproven -- due to the Chinese dictatorship's suspicious lack of transparency and cooperation.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#242

Post by himinlomax »

jjeaff wrote: post #30
eloff wrote: post #5

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…

Except for the age difference of the victims, those numbers actually make covid seem pretty bad. Covid has hardly been around for a year and is killing 7x as many people a year.

Covid is an acute infection, you get infected, you beat the infection or you die. Some may have life-long side effects from the disease, but they are free from the disease itself.

Malaria, like HIV or Herpes, is a chronic disease. Once you're infected, you're affected by it until you die. The debilitating effects of malaria also have disastrous economic impacts.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#243

Post by janto »

ny2ko wrote: post #162
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Expat typically means emigrant, not immigrant.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#244

Post by oblio »

estaseuropano wrote: post #163
oblio wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it racism, though?

Ignoring smaller numbers in eastern Europe and central Asia, the people dying from poverty and preventable diseases tend to be African, south east Asian or south American.

Yeah, but nobody's killing them on purpose (I hope!).

It's just that those regions are warm and humid, and this creates great living conditions for mosquitoes.

To make things worse, many countries in these regions are poor, so they can't afford treatment or prevention (pesticides to kill mosquitoes, draining swamps, etc.).

Rich countries in the same regions most likely don't have big problems with malaria (or if malaria is still a problem, it's probably a minor problem).

It's just "bad" geography (from this point of view) and poverty.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#245

Post by oblio »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #147
oblio wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it racism, though?

It isn't inherently racism (though there is racism involved). It's more a NIMBY type effect, but in reverse, I think – “it doesn't affect me, so I don't have to think about it” type thing.

> a NIMBY type effect, but in reverse

We call that selfishness :-)

And we can't force people to help others, no matter how much we dislike the attitude.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#246

Post by argvargc »

estaseuropano wrote: post #161
argvargc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except for the age difference of the victims Right. Let's all just ignore that the majority of those killed by covid are around the average age of life expectancy, so that we can try and make the unprecedentedly panicked, massively-damaging and downright stupid multi-trillion dollar response to covid appear slightly less irrational and racist. Starving kills 9 million/year. They're mainly children of colour too, bu…

The thing is that the death rates would be manifold higher if not for those measures. In the global study on the effects of covid we are all in the treatment condition. That said, I agree that many of those resources would be better spent on eradicating hunger and slavery, as well as the poverty diseases.

Haven't seen convincing evidence the death rates would be higher without the measures employed, much the opposite (35 studies so far): https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns-do-not-control-the-co...

It is heartening to see many here agreeing we could do better.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#247

Post by qart »

jimkleiber wrote: post #225
jogjayr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

From my understanding, the vivax variety can bury into the liver and come back out in the future, whereas the falciparum type, which seems to have faster and deadlier results if untreated, once it is treated, is no longer in the body. 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 thi…

I have had both falciparum and vivax (different years), confirmed by lab tests. The treatment was exactly the same in both cases. While one of them was quite debilitating, the other felt like an ordinary flu. I forgot which is which. In both cases, I was prescribed a month's worth of medication to get rid of the plasmodium from the liver.

I don't live in a malaria-prone locality anymore, but when I did, the people did not consider it a deadly disease. I think access to medical facilities and good nutrition are the key factors why some populations consider it a deadly disease, and other populations don't.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#249

Post by iso1631 »

eloff wrote: post #5

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 affects rich powerful people (rich old people in the west who can't buy their way out of it)

Malaria affects poor people with no power (young children in poor countries with limited access to medicine)

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#250

Post by iso1631 »

oblio wrote: post #245
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't inherently racism (though there is racism involved). It's more a NIMBY type effect, but in reverse, I think – “it doesn't affect me, so I don't have to think about it” type thing.

> a NIMBY type effect, but in reverse We call that selfishness :-) And we can't force people to help others, no matter how much we dislike the attitude.

> And we can't force people to help others, no matter how much we dislike the attitude.

We can, and we do all the time, via taxation. You're forced to pay taxes to fund the people who empty the bins in the park you never even go to.

It's a good thing.

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