The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered • Hacker News Board

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#251

Post by iso1631 » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #244

estaseuropano wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mala…

Florida is warm and humid

If you see someone drowning and refuse to throw them the life ring because you might damage your newly painted nails, you're not technically killing them on purpose, but you're still killing them through your inaction

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#252

Post by iso1631 » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 11:20 AM UTC

eloff wrote: post #55

soperj wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Covid-19 is hopefully going to be short-lived thanks to the vaccines, but even if it weren't for that it would likely become more virulent but less deadly over time like the other Coronaviruses that are endemic in humans. Over the last year it's be come more virulent and more deadly. We have no idea how well the vaccines are going to work. We have a situation right now where a country(india) with 100 million people…

> Over the last year it's be come more virulent and more deadly. Evolution is a somewhat random process at its heart, but I stand by what I said as the likely outcome, because that's the path new diseases normally take. It's early days yet. > We have no idea how well the vaccines are going to work I think we have a petty good idea by now actually. A bigger question is how much will it be hampered by people afraid or…

> I have never in my life seen such widespread and illogical fear of vaccines.

It's interesting, in the UK we had ridiculous reaction to the MMR jab after a fraudulent claim, fired up by the media - from the ever populist Daily Mail to Private Eye [0], which led to a collapse in MMR takeup and a resurgence in measles.

But we haven't seen that with covid, perhaps because the printed press is (mostly) on the side of the current government (flag waving populists), and the vaccine rollout has been branded aprt of the generational "battle" between the UK, standing alone against Europe (many in the UK don't realise WW2 ended 76 years ago).

I wonder if we'd had a Corbyn or Starmer led coalition in charge if things would be different.

Or imagine if the lib dems had held on to 20-30 seats that the tories gained in 2015 -- likely another coalition, with a 5 year fixed term, no brexit referendum, and then the GE having to be delayed (it would have been set for May 2020)

[0] https://behavioralscientist.org/how-fraud-and-a-broken-publi...

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#253

Post by DennisP » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

IdiocyInAction wrote: post #188

BurningFrog wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that looking at the wiki article. It seems to have been very successful to begin with, but then the mosquitos became resistant to DDT and western countries have a climate advantage. Notably, they did try it in poorer countries too.

DDT was also used incorrectly. It was supposed to be sprayed on walls, so it was made to be persistent. Naturally farmers crop-dusted it on their fields, and that made it an environmental problem.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#254

Post by NicoJuicy » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 11:52 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #151

ff-- wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If all kids in your neighborhood get sick, including yours.

Do you first try to heal your kid or everyone at the same time?

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#255

Post by spacemanmatt » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 12:16 PM UTC

dmt0 wrote: post #229

jquery wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese working abroad are expats wherever they are.

And Russians are immigrants. It doesn't go by race, it's Haves vs Have Nots - the only two classes that really exist.

> it's Haves vs Have Nots - the only two classes

Then what do you call it when the Haves trend light in skin tone and the Have Nots trend dark in skin tone?

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#256

Post by lxxxvi » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

spacemanmatt wrote: post #255

dmt0 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Russians are immigrants. It doesn't go by race, it's Haves vs Have Nots - the only two classes that really exist.

> it's Haves vs Have Nots - the only two classes Then what do you call it when the Haves trend light in skin tone and the Have Nots trend dark in skin tone?

3/4 of Europe are have-nots in the expat:immigrant debate...

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#257

Post by Perceval » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

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…

Quinine is better as a prophylaxis rather than a treatment - i.e. for preventative or early-stage use, not once it's developed into a bad case. Low doses early (like in the tonic water of the late 1800s) could help prevent one from catching malaria while avoiding the nasty side effects of larger quinine doses needed for treating an advanced case.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#258

Post by ncmncm » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

namenotrequired wrote: post #239

ncmncm wrote: post #173

It strikes me as extremely odd to call this a "discovery". The vaccine was very specifically designed to work in exactly its unique mode to be effective against one species of pathogen. We might equally well talk about SpaceX Starship being "discovered". To me, it is invented , constructed , engineered , or created . What has been discovered?

This is an interesting question. I'm honestly curious if anyone knows - why do we talk about, say, machines being invented but drugs and vaccines being discovered? (I get that you invent the drug, and then you discover whether it works. But the same is true for machines.)

It makes sense to talk about discovering a bioactive compound, such as from an herbal remedy, or by testing a family of related compounds. An engineered vaccine is a wholly different animal.

The only other time we say "discover" about something manufactured is when somebody else did it. We can discover a meth lab, a Ponzi scheme, or (in principle) an alien civilization.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#259

Post by eloff » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

himinlomax wrote: post #241

anonuser123456 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lab escape is still bat origin, just potentially with a human assist (or human mistake with an unaltered virus.)

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#260

Post by yyyk » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #215

garyfirestorm wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's IIRC a single-digit number of mosquito species carrying malaria and a slightly higher number of mosquito species targeting humans - as compared to hundreds of species of mosquito. Kill the carriers off and they just get replaced by some other specie of mosquito.

Lets face it, if the same Malaria mortality rate happened in the West, we wouldn't (and historically didn't) wait for vaccines - we'd pave over an entire ecosystem if we had to. We'd do the same even if we had the same death rate as the group that got vaccinated.