Would this be a solution to the problem? -> Make mosquito nets that disintegrate when soaked in water.
Rain?
Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
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Re: Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
#42Would this be a solution to the problem? -> Make mosquito nets that disintegrate when soaked in water.
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Re: Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
As opposed to entire marine fisheries destroyed by industrialized fishing that puts tins of tuna on grocery shelves.
Which has nothing to do with the article.
I beg to differ. The economic principles underlying both are the same — technology pushed the supply curve too far to the left, past the critical regeneration threshold (which must exist for any self-renewing resource).
Re: Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
#44Sometimes I feel that the western fascination with Malaria is a little misplaced. Actual Africans speak about Malaria like we speak about Influenza: a treatable illness that only kills the very old and very young. Actually Flu and Malaria kill roughly about the same number of people globally each year. Imagine if African billionaires showed up on our shores one day and started handing out respirators and face masks t…
Flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people world wide each year. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs211/en/ Malaria kills about 650,000 people each year. The low estimate is 473,000 and the high estimate is 789,000 So, if by "roughly the same" you mean "more" then yes, they are roughly the same. And people do take flu immunisation if they are in a vulnerable group.
I'm guessing that flu is much more global than malaria as well meaning that out of the number of people that could possibly be infected malaria is much more common.
Re: Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
#45Sigh. SIGH. How dare our charity be used for practicalities! We must over-engineer harder! Only our brilliance can save poor, poor Africa! Same nonsense I've been reading about since the 1800s. The Africans figured out how to deal with public health a long, long time ago: spread your villages and use air and time to isolate outbreaks. This has worked for longer than human history has been recorded. And this technique…
As many problems as this particular net situation brings, it would be foolish to step back and blame first world efforts. Further education is sorely needed. As education seeps into these system, corruption and foolish decisions are eventually called to account.
Africa is not a monolithic problem with identical inputs and outputs everywhere. Assistance from first-world countries does actually make a difference, and comes in many, many forms, from medical care to microloans to security assistance and psychological trauma support.
Re: Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article makes it pretty clear that overfishing is likely to wipe out local fish populations.
As opposed to entire marine fisheries destroyed by industrialized fishing that puts tins of tuna on grocery shelves.
The concern here isn't so much about fishing (though it may be a problem) as much as it is what the nets are treated with, which might affect fish populations, other species, and the very humans they're intended to protect. The article explicitly states that permethrin is highly toxic to cold-blooded animals, fish in particular, and could over-stress local populations. If the fish they don't catch die from exposure to insecticides, the situation is liable to get much worse.
I understand why the nets were treated with insecticide, but it seems a bit foolhardy to have done so when there was a possibility the nets might not be used for their intended purpose. Although I suspect no one involved considered such a possibility, or if they did that it wouldn't be nearly as wide spread.
I think this represents one of the major problems with our current means of providing foreign aid. Although well-meaning, providing mosquito nets to people in effort to protect them from a disease that is likely to kill them versus starving to death (which definitely will kill them), the people are going to address their immediate concerns first. I don't know what the solution is, but it seems that just attacking one particular problem at a time isn't working. I agree with other comments here that eliminating malaria probably means dealing with food stability and access to clean water first and foremost, then addressing malaria (in parallel, possibly). I respect the organizations that are trying to help, but the solutions don't come easily.
But then you also have the other problem that these are impoverished, sometimes war-torn areas that have threats even beyond the scope of access to food and water...
Re: Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
#47I've heard public health people talk about the problem of giving away nets for free before, and that charging some amount of money seems to improve usage. It may be more than just the decision between starving and malaria, but also some psychology involved with getting free things.
There's another side to that, which is that charging a tiny amount has a disproportionate effect on usage (e.g. $0.00 to $0.01 has a bigger effect than $0.01 to $1.00). This shows that charging a fee has the negative impact of preventing people from buying them, even though the benefit outwieghs the cost.
Re: Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> globally vs. > in the US Speaking of incomparable scales...
Time to break out some napkin math: 627,000 malaria deaths * 90% in sub-Saharan Africa[1] = 564,000 malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. 564,000 deaths / population of Africa (~815 million) = 69.2 African malaria deaths per 100,000 people . -- About 32,743 U.S. flu deaths per year, recently.[2] 32,742 deaths / population of U.S. (~316 million) = 10.4 U.S. flu deaths per 100,000 people . -- It looks like, by these nu…
Not to mention, we can eliminate an extreme majority of malaria deaths, and we can do so at a relatively low cost per person. Something the parent is ignoring entirely.
Re: Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
#49I studied health economics a bit, and the article does a really good job of covering all the bases. This really isn't a question that can be answered with grand theories e.g. "Just give them money", "Africa needs low tech solutions" or "White people always create more problems" (actually the first theory might be true, I just haven't seen much specific evidence regarding malaria).
A summary of the background facts are
- Malaria is a big problem. - Mosquito nets prevent malaria - It's hard to get people to use mosquito nets.
I think the key takeaways from the article are that (1) the proponents of mosquito nets aren't convinced that the scale of this problem is big enough to offset the overall positive effect of free mosquito nets. But (2) critics of mosquito nets suspect that proponents have too much psychologically (and financially?) invested in the mosquito net solution to consider alternatives. E.g. this interesting quote:
>Dr. Lehman, the American physician on Lake Tanganyika, wonders if there might be better malaria solutions for waterside communities. Specially treated wall coverings? Custom-fit window screens? “Why is this question not being asked?” she said, a bit exasperated. “Is it that we don’t really want to know the answer?”
Re: Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In
#50I've heard public health people talk about the problem of giving away nets for free before, and that charging some amount of money seems to improve usage. It may be more than just the decision between starving and malaria, but also some psychology involved with getting free things.
How about… address the food insecurity first? The symptom is that people are misusing nets. The problem is that they have no sustainable food system.
and then they have more people and need more food, need more support for their ecosystem because of the exploding population is destroying it, and now you have uneducated people so they need education assistance, schools etc, etc etc. it seems like it would never end