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Effective Vaccine For Malaria

Posted by timothy on from the no-weeping-or-crying dept.

PeterM from Berkeley writes "According to this news story, researchers may have finally developed a vaccine effective against malaria. Malaria kills 1 million people per year and sickens about 300 million, and is one of the big reasons the 3rd world is a mess. And as a bonus, it may be that the same vaccine may also protect against smallpox."

2 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. As someone who's taken malaria pills... by curunir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...and had to deal with the resulting, acid-trip-like dreams vivid enough to rival the experience on even the most expensive of illicit substances, I have this to say:

    "Your vaccine is not welcome!"

    --
    "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
  2. Re:Malaria in the third world by Fmonkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only countries I have knowledge about with mosquito eradication are France and the U.S.

    France was a cesspool from run off from the alps before engineers practically terraformed their country and drained all the swamps (Thus was invented the French Drain).

    The U.S. had similar operations. They also used a massive campaign of DDT which had trucks crossing the countryside covering everything in DDT. (I have heard stories of kids chasing the trucks around to play in the fog sprayed from them.)

    It takes a tremendous effort to coordinate the type of campaign required to fix these problems. Some African countries still rely on DDT to control the mosquito populations.

    Without the option of the vaccine, there is almost no option of control. The two countries previously mentioned benefited from a culture of fanatical patriotism. This gives people the replenishing energy state of mind to be able to survive the frightening amount of work that is required to terraform a landscape. Workers blindly obeyed the desire to rid the world (their country) of the menace plague. (The workers were motivated by language and not reward.)

    The third world needs to get a huge group of very intelligent psychologically imbalanced people and controllably direct their unenviable focus to fix the problem.
    Or just pay some companies more money than the countries involved actually possess.

    I feel my idea is more workable.

    And more fun.

    Genesis Chapter 11.