Drug resistant malaria takes new ground, raising fears of global spread | Hacker News Reader

Drug resistant malaria takes new ground, raising fears of global spread

arstechnica.com

34 pointsshawndumas13 comments

Sensationalist headline.

One drug in a multi-drug treatment is taking longer to be effective. The malaria is not resistant to the partner drug, nor even to the primary drug - it's just more tolerant in that the primary drug alone may not clear the parasite in under 72 hours.

Cause for concern? Yes. Cause for alarm? No.

I think you're missing the point. It's about "The loss of ACTs as an effective therapy". ACT has been the goto treatment for long now and what is at risk is an effective goto treatment which would leave each clinic with no easy and effective solution to cure people. Procedures are standardized and applied as per the WHO recommendations (which largely originate from the work in the Mae Sot area).

Mae Sot (really, it's the Thai-Burmese border as there is virtually no Malaria cases in Mae Sot as the mosquitos hate cities) is an area that has been leading the research and study of Malaria treatments for years now and is generally regarded and the trend-maker of Malaria as a whole.

I'm just getting a redirect to local host for that article. Other articles on arstechnica.com work fine. Broken link?

Edit: Going directly to the comments works (no RST or redirect): http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/03/drug-resistant-m...

NSF Weak Stomach warning, the images are not pretty.

I would like to see a solution of the 'mosquito genocide' variety.

Seriously, I would love to see an engineered virus that wipes out all mosquitoes everywhere, or at least within a very large radius like a medium sized country. I would also like to see spiders taken care of next, as well as killer ants and killer bees.

Images are not that bad. Having witnessed myself a severe case of Malaria at the said border (Myanmar/Thailand), I can tell you that the guy in the picture might have been running just two days after the picture was taken (I've worked with the SMRU / http://www.shoklo-unit.com/).

We're already working on a mosquito genocide solution. Ever since the Nature article ( http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html ) about how the ecosystem would be fine without mosquitoes I've seen a number of mosquito genocide solutions that just yell "mad scientist".

We're using lasers http://www.physorg.com/news185463943.html

We're using smelly socks http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-07/sock-science-f...

We're tricking them into drinking poison http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27mosquito.html

We're even genetically engineering them to self destruct http://gizmodo.com/5852703/mosquitoes-genetically+engineered...

It's a bad time to be a mosquito.

(Also, I think this is how a Starship Troopers / Ender's Game scenario starts.)

A quick search on the Internet for the downside of such a genocide has yielded no results. Would you care to give some pointers or explanations if you have any?

I'm a firm believer that all actions have consequences and even if presented with "proves" that a mosquito genocide is without risks for the environment as a whole, I still wouldn't believe it totally.

For instance, mosquitos are traditionally eaten by Geckos (Mourning Gecko) in SEA which can be found in very large quantities. People mostly don't pay attention to them (although some people are scared of them) and couldn't care less when they emit their "weird sounds".

Such a large quantity of Geckos is abundant food for all sort of animals such as snakes, birds, and whatnot.

I'm not even a scientist so I really don't know why I'm following this obvious path unless an outreach of creationism has blind-folded actual the scientists?

Species die out every day, and they will continue to do so with our without our help. That's natural selection. Deliberate genocide is an irrevocable step in theory, but with something as ubiquitous as the mosquito it's unlikely to ever be completely successful.

That said, it's doubtful their extinction would cause any other species immediate trouble. What it will do is save hundreds of millions of human lives.

Let's bring back DDT. I'm serious. human life is more important than some shitty apex predators.

DDT is already back in use in many places. In fact, it's been in use so much (mostly to protect crops) that there is significant DDT resistance in some parts of the world. Now, it's not as simple as DDT doesn't work anymore, but it's also definitely not the same as 'if we just used it, it would fix everything'.

In fact, most 'bans' on DDT are actually primarily bans on agricultural use of DDT. Use of DDT as malaria vector control (for example in the United States) is allowed (as well as controlling other disease vectors). The problem is primarily the countries who haven't banned DDT for agricultural use, as it is that usage that has most greatly contributed to DDT resistance.

Not too many mosquitoes here in California.

Sorry for writing this, I didn't mean to be insensitive. What I meant to say was that a malaria epidemic seems unlikely to pose an existential threat to humanity because mosquitoes aren't everywhere. I was hoping someone would correct me if I was wrong and there was some other way for malaria to spread...

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