First cases of malaria in the US in 20 years
vox.com
vox.com
Charles Mann wrote a great book, 1493, on the Colombian Exchange which I'd highly recommend. The introduction of malaria to the Americas is one underappreciated aspect of that he introduced me to.
And is why the CDC is in Atlanta.
Hookworms reproduce in the intestinal tract and then lay eggs, which are passed through the body inside feces. They enter the body though the feet, and the cycle starts over. Knowing this, a plan was devised to provide outhouses, shoes, and hookworm treatment to infected people, and it was successful in greatly reducing hookworm infections. Like malaria, hookworm is still around and able to infect people.
https://resource.rockarch.org/story/public-health-how-the-fi...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-the-us-plans-t...
https://www.oxitec.com/en/our-technology#:~:text=Our%20Frien...!
You concern isn’t about some sort of side-effect of the Oxitec treatment, but rather your worry is that their solution does exactly the opposite of what it’s trying to do. Just based on this I’m skeptical. Also numbers wise, if some fraction of “Friendly Males” are actually female, or the self-limiting gene is disrupted due to environmental factors, assuming the majority of the friendly males have their self-limiting gene in tact then it’ll still have an overall positive effect. I don’t think the presence of some “defective” (or rather, not defective) mosquitos will off-set the presence of all the other ones working as intended.
I’m also assuming it’s straightforward to measure the effect of this treatment on the environment. It should be easy to confirm this really is having the desired effect. I think.
In the 90s it was discovered that fruitflies now can metabolize DDT, so it can be broken down (and still used in larger concentrations to kill them)
Not advocating DDT use, just a FYI. It ws thought to "never be broken down"
In the US, The FDA limits how much can be added, https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/what-is-quinine-in-to....
"Per FDA ruling, tonic water can contain only 83 milligrams of quinine per liter. The typical medicinal dosage of quinine is around 500 milligrams, and in the case of malaria, it is taken multiple times a day"
I lived in SE Asia for over 7 years with close to 2 years of living in remote areas with dengue and malaria. I drank my Schweppes tonic water because I am sober and enjoy the bitterness, and it gave me some peace of mind that I was keeping quinine in my system at any level.
Having cobra anti-venom was a lot more important where the nearest trauma center could be 12 hours away by vehicle due to winding, mountainous, and difficult roads before hitting a real paved road.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/145496/#:~:text=Chronic%20in....
Africa is another matter entirely. For centuries no white man made it further than the beach until an effective medicine was invented.
By comparison in 2021 there were twice as many COVID deaths.
[0] https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2023/han00494.asp
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.htm...
Also the US military warned years ago that increased climate temperature would bring back malaria to the states, and here we are.
It's absolutely coming back to the US. Mosquitos are moving north to stay in their optimal temperature range as the climate warms.
edit: My wife saw my comment and got annoyed that I listed the wrong subspecies. Updated to include Anopheles Darlingi.
So the warmer the states get, the warmer the land south of the states get. More and more mosquitos survive winters closer to the states, and so smaller travel distance.
But based on what you just said it seems that understanding is not actually how it works?
Temperature impacts mosquitos in several ways that change their effectiveness as a vector for disease.
The temperature during egg/pupa/larva stages impacts adult body size and fitness of the mosquito. That in turn tends to impact total lifespan.
A change as small as 2 to 4 degrees C can add or remove more than a week of lifespan for a mosquito (huge change, the average lifespan is 10-14 days), and the longer a mosquito is alive, the more likely it is to become a vector for malaria (and other diseases). For malaria in particular - the life cycle of the disease means the mosquito usually needs to make it at least 10 days to become a vector.
Throw on top that changes in temperature can change the feeding habits (shift them in time to make mosquitos more likely to feed when humans are out) and that parts of the southern US are now considered viable habitat for these subspecies and you get Malaria.
They do still need to interact with an animal/person carrying malaria during their adult stages - and the general strategy in the US is still to contain and treat those carriers.
We just expect it to get much more expensive as these mosquitos become more fit for our region.
Can we use bats or nematodes to fight this return?
I spray my lawn with beneficial nematodes. I saw some small decline in the number of mosquitoes born in my yard but it doesn't stop mosquitoes from surrounding areas. My next move is to install a bat house on my house.
Her advice:
- Remove standing water anywhere you can
- Use nets/screens on open windows/doors to reduce access
- Avoid outdoor activities at dawn/dusk when they are most likely to feed
- Don't plant bushes near outdoor seating (apparently they hide there during the day, but will choose to feed outside normal hours if it's convenient)
Seems we're second.
A quick google search turned this up: https://coloradoinjurylaw.com/blog/dog-bite-statistics/
> Rabid dogs are responsible for the deaths of an estimated 25,000 people per year. In countries where dogs commonly carry rabies they are involved in up to 99% of infections, according to the WHO. Countries with large numbers of stray dogs, including India, are the worst affected. According to the WHO, about 36% of the world's rabies deaths - 20,000 of about 55,000 deaths worldwide - occur in India each year, most of those when children come into contact with infected dogs.
> Dying from an actual dog bite is much more rare. There is no reliable worldwide data, but of the estimated 4.5 million dog bites in the US every year, only about 30 people die on average.
It's not the mosquitoes that kill us.
Bears don't kill people. Lacerations from their teeth and claws do.
Is it the blood loss, or the stopping of the heart?
Is it the stopping of the heart, or oxygen starvation of the brain?
Is it the oxygen starvation of the brain, or the chemical breakdown therein?
Is it the chemical breakdown of the brain, or the resulting changed perception of others causing them to ascribe the very human and sometimes subjective label “dead” to the subject of the bear’s attentions?
Or is it the victim's ancestors, who made sure they were alive in the first place, thus setting the stage for their guaranteed death?
Though fun-fact: California used to have an endemic subspecies of Grizzly bear that was entirely wiped out by the European settlers. I can’t really fault them for this... times were tough back then. Some Grizzly Bears have re-enter California from the north in more recent times.
Makes me realize that in certain contexts ecological preservation is a privilege. If there’s a 2% chance a Grizzly is going to kill my darling child Timmy, I’m okay with wiping them out and worrying about the ramifications later. I’m not going to risk little Timmy being eaten to preserve some amorphous concept of natural balance. Fortunately we don’t live in that world any longer. (And >0.05% risk of Timmy being eaten is acceptable to me, since this is on par with many other risks)
And also useless! But at least you're right: it does fit in well here.
Which affected states are not taking public health seriously? How could they take public health more seriously and what direct impact would it have on this issue?
Florida surgeon general released altered covid vaccine data to show higher risk of death – https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/25/health/florida-covid-vaccine-...
The science said it was a pandemic of the unvaccinated and the unvaccinated were at a higher risk of Covid infection, comorbidities be damned. Looks like the AG followed the science consensus and removed a study that was not peer reviewed nor replicated in any confirming matter.
This is only “news” because of the state and its current government’s party.
Not to mention actually authorizing genetic tampering to limit mosquito populations and potentially even prevent them from being able to spread the disease outright. I think that being willing to risk genetic tampering indicates a pretty serious commitment to solving the problem.
„‘Safe and effective’: first malaria vaccine to be rolled out in 12 countries“, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jul/06/s...
The anti-science and ant-public-health ranting in the US is evidently having an effect.
And sure, you compared to Belize, an island country with much limited movement compared to the US.
Anti-science is not limited to anti-vaccines, it also encompasses all the public health measures, supposedly being a limitation on "freedom" and "bodily autonomy", claimed to be steppingstones to authoritarianism - all by people who want absolute 'freedumb', and all the benefits of living in a complex society but zero of the responsibilities of maintaining the complex society.
I will grant that the connection here is more tenuous than a herd of anti-vaxxers making a measles cluster and spreading it.
But the broad anti-science thrust both suppresses general public health measures, and in openly "anti-woke" states like Florida & Texas, the administrations actively undermine public health measures, even outlawing such measures, and preventing cities/counties from implementing their own.
Thus, it is no surprise to find that Texas and Florida are the locus of these infections, and to find that juxtaposed vs Belize successfully eradicating the disease.