Egypt Declared Malaria-Free After Century of Work To Defeat Disease (semafor.com) 31
Egypt was declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization, after nearly a century of work to eradicate the disease in the country. From a report: Egypt saw 3 million cases a year in the 1940s, and the Aswan Dam's development in the 1960s created new bodies of standing water for the mosquitoes to breed in, but by 2001 the disease was "firmly under control," according to the WHO. "The disease that plagued pharaohs now belongs to [Egypt's] history," the WHO's chief said. It's the 44th country to be certified, but the wider battle against malaria goes on: The mosquito-borne disease still kills around 600,000 people a year, the large majority of them children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Meanwhile in the First World US of A (Score:3, Interesting)
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Because of the "vaXXINes are teh 3VIL!!!!" crowd.
Re:Meanwhile in the First World US of A (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit. The Third World has been pouring over an open border for years.
(Suck that truth dick, Trolls. Swallow, because you know it’s true.)
I propose an experiment.
Travel to Mexico and then mail all your identification back home. Try crossing the border yourself. If its as wide open as you claim you should be home before lunchtime.
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No shit. The Third World has been pouring over an open border for years.
(Suck that truth dick, Trolls. Swallow, because you know it’s true.)
I propose an experiment.
Travel to Mexico and then mail all your identification back home. Try crossing the border yourself. If its as wide open as you claim you should be home before lunchtime.
Just to be clear - your experiment is to cross the border through official border crossings? Or unofficial border crossings?
You can lead a retard to water... (Score:2)
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That would be fine, however those diseases are highly contagious. If you aren't up to date on your vaccinations, or you never received a full vaccination (I believe MMR is now 2 doses, even though for a huge part it was a
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That's nice, how about the Aedes diseases? (Score:2)
Aedes aegypti is a vector for transmitting numerous pathogens. According to the Walter Reed Biosystematics Units as of 2022, it is associated with the following 54 viruses and 2 species of Plasmodium (versions of the malaria parasite): Aino virus (AINOV), African horse sickness virus (AHSV), Bozo virus (BOZOV), Bussuquara virus (BSQV), Bunyamwera virus (BUNV), Catu virus (CATUV), Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), Chandipura vesiculovirus (CHPV), Cypovirus (unnamed), Cache Valley virus (CVV), Dengue virus (DENV), E
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Uh, who names a virus Bozo virus? How is a doctor supposed to tell a patient he has that?
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Clowns.
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Uh, who names a virus Bozo virus? How is a doctor supposed to tell a patient he has that?
They named it that because the symptoms include: Balding head, pale skin, swollen nose, inflamed lips, changes in hair color, and acutely enlarged feet.
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In French, Sango, or one of the local languages, presumably. The virus is named for the village of Bozo in the Central African Republic, near where it was discovered.
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One of these days, I'm going to go on a holiday to Marburg (Germany) and Ebola (D.Rep.Congo) via ... well, probably Bozo.
Kill the mosquitoes (Score:1)
Just kill them by releasing sterile males into the environment, rinse and repeat.
FUD (Score:2)
People will be against it because they watched Jurassic Park once and Jeff Goldblum said that nature will do something bad if you did something like that.
Re: Kill the mosquitoes (Score:2)
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Re:Florida, Hawaii? (Score:5, Informative)
If malaria is due to mosquitos then why aren't Florida and Hawaii hard hit?
To get this designation, Egypt has not had any major cases in the last 3 years . The last serious cases of malaria in Florida was in 2023. [floridahealth.gov] so Florida does not qualify for this designation.
Why does it vary so much by country in tropical locations? Do mosquitos respect political boundaries?
You do know different countries have different leaders, priorities, budget, infrastructure, etc, right? Not every country handles a situation exactly as the country next door much less across the world.
Or perhaps mosquitos are a convenient scapegoat for massive industrial poisoning of the environment.
What? It is not rocket science that malaria is spread through mosquitos. Mosquitos also transmit other diseases. This is not breakthrough science.
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Actually, for malaria it was quite a voyage of discovery. Correctly grouping sets of symptoms into one "disease" was one issue (the negative evidence of being sensitive to quinine would have been really hard to apply when you had to grind your own tree bark, and had no assay to know if your concoction was effective or not). Malaria having multiple different stages
Re: Florida, Hawaii? (Score:2)
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Florida used to be. It was a malarial hellhole and people thought Henry Flagler was nuts for wanting to develop it. Washington DC was a malarial swamp too, and once in a while someone in that area contracts it locally.
The US doesn't have (much) malaria today due to draining land and spraying for mosquitoes. It's not exceptional though, malaria has been mostly eradicated from the northern and southern fringes of it's pre-intervention range, the US and Europe being part of that:
https://www.researchgate.net/f. [researchgate.net]
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In the mid 20th century there was a global campaign to eradicate malaria. They used a lot of DDT to successfully get rid of the mosquito. But then DDT fell out of favor because of overuse and abuse and it's side effects. So it wasn't globally successful. But malaria did become much less common in the Americas and much of the rest of the world, except in Africa where it remained very common.
More "good" news (Score:3)
Some religious dingbat (Score:2)
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