Malaria Vaccine Nearing Reality 209
colin_faber writes "Right on the heels of the Bill Gates BusinessWeek article discussing the importance of disease prevention and cure over technological deployment is news from CNN that U.S. researchers may have a viable vaccine for malaria. If true, this could change the lives of up to 3.3 billion people living in malaria danger zones and allow us to do away with this disease, which kills hundreds of thousands of people."
Re:Do Away With This Disease? (Score:5, Informative)
I thought the whole point of Bill Gates' foundation's attempts to find a vaccine for Malaria was to:
1. create a vaccine
2. make lots of it for cheap
3. find ways to distribute it everywhere as cheap as possible
4. help distribute it everywhere
Seems to me that if they keep throwing money at the problems (refrigeration, handling) they will eventually succeed.
Re:African parent vs autism (Score:5, Informative)
There have been instances of vaccine-related 'controversy' bullshit in Africa [nih.gov](Good work, part of Nigera, it's not like polio is a problem or anything...); but none related to autism, to my knowledge.
In general, though, there's nothing like a population for which some ghastly disease is still a firsthand reality to keep vaccine concerns (even ones founded on actual side effects of the vaccine) at bay. For something with the morbidity and mortality rates of malaria, even a vaccine with atypically nasty risks would probably be damn popular.
The really difficult problem is when dealing with diseases that are almost nonexistent (and thus not scary)
Re:Do Away With This Disease? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Bill Gates was showing a special container that doesn't require electricity and can keep medicine refrigerated for up to 50 days at high outside temperatures.
The whole point of a malaria vaccine is to make it affordable for poor nations. The demand for a malaria vaccine in rich countries is pretty low.
Most Africans are pretty sensible people (Score:5, Informative)
Why not? Do you feel that Africans are, on average, more rational than Europeans and Americans?
No but your average European or American is generally pretty rational. Furthermore malaria is an obvious enough problem in Africa that the risks of any side effect (real or imagined) will be very minor by comparison if the vaccine actually works. In some places in Africa the CDC reports that malaria accounts for close to half of all hospital admissions. It kills 600,000 people a year and sickens millions more. It's almost impossible to overstate how beneficial a cure for malaria would be to affected populations. I've seen some snarky comments in this thread but Africans mostly understand the problem quite well. Certainly better than most of the people posting here since I doubt more than a handful of slashdotters have actually observed the effects of malaria first hand.
Re:African parent vs autism (Score:3, Informative)
I was in South Africa in 2011 and saw lots of billboards all over the country with the Health Ministers image on it and the quote "avoid AIDS, get circumcised".
This is good health policy. "There is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60%." - WHO (http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/)
She also held the policy of rejecting antivirals and instead promoted her own diet of garlic and beet root.
This is garbage health policy.