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Malaria Has Been Eliminated In Europe (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Quartz reports that "Malaria cases in Europe have dropped from a peak of over 90,000 in 1995 to zero in 2015, according to the World Health Organization," who calls the "extraordinary but fragile" achievement a step towards eliminating malaria everywhere. Nine European countries had reported malaria cases, but agreed to focus their efforts on a full elimination of the mosquito-borne disease. "The WHO attributes success to improved surveillance systems, better mosquito control, and greater collaboration across borders," reports Quartz, noting it now provides a blueprint for other countries fighting the disease -- and a boost in morale.
The article lists Tajikistan as a European country, which makes it difficult to consider the article seriously.
Nine European countries reported cases in 1995, and zero reported cases in 2015.
Just in time for a new virus - Zika
Even when the sky is mostly clear, some people still gaze sadly at the clouds, waiting for the impending rain.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
that with global warming the malaria mosquito areal will move further to the north.
i've been carefully watching my own kids and they have seemed to have lost their fear of nature now that there aren't bugs carrying potentially deadly viruses. it's only a matter of time before they run into the forest to live with the animals and... wait a second... i don't have children! who are these frauds?!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
No, there is not a large pool of the malaria parasite in the thames valley. This is a stupid statement. Malaria doesn't lie dormant in the environment, waiting for the right conditions to appear. It can only survive in the host or vector. The only place it can lie 'dormant' is within the human host. Given there have been no cases of malaria transmission in England for a very long time we can safely say that there is no 'large pool of the malaria microbe'. Your statement that winters being too cold to allow mosquito and parasite to mix together clearly indicates you've got no clue what you're talking about. The reason that cold weather prevents malaria is that the adult mosquitos are dead, only the eggs are present (and malaria doesn't live in mosquito eggs). If the adults are dead there are no transmission events because there are no mosquitos around to bite.
If we think about others more than ourselves, we should be helping defeat the two great problems of wold hunger and malaria. Every little bit we can help does help for immediate and lasting change. World hunger in itself could be defeated in a generation if enough of us helped. Even something as simple as eating your boring leftovers so you eat out and save money can help out some. The main idea is to forgo the luxuries that you don't need to help more.
God spoke to me
Even a passing interest in genealogy will teach any European how massively deadly malaria and influenza have been for their grandparents and great-grandparents. Malaria has killed half of every human being ever, it used to kill millions out of every generation in Europe even in the XXth century, until large-scale efforts at drying out swamps and massive DDT campaigns successfully curbed mosquito breeding to a point where the parasite couldn't spread and renew its carrier pool anymore.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
i think the spread of malaria was mainly stopped by the ridiculously dry years we've had in europe. there were months long periods without proper rain where i live.. last year, i wasn't bitten once. the year before that, maybe 2-3 times. the climate is simply becoming too dry for the mosquitoes to thrive. global warming FTW!
Just wait, human stupidity will fix that for you guys.
Why cant we get a vaccine against stupidity? or at least make it so those people can not reproduce?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They are talking about indigenous cases and since malaria can't spread human to human it doesn't matter if immigrants bring it into the EU
0 cases seems remarkable given that two years ago, the ECDC said that only "99% of malaria cases [in Europe] are travel-related".
Most of this was a big (relatively speaking) and anomalous spike in Greece.
"For instance, Greece had managed to remain malaria free between 1974 and 2009, but in 2010 three locally acquired malaria cases were reported, followed by 40 in 2011, 20 in 2012 and three in 2013".
http://www.euro.who.int/en/hea...
This is what climate change brings you. Completely extinct. I hope you are happy, Europe! #savemalaria #climatechange
No, there IS a large reservoir in the Thames Valley. Sorry.
And I never said it was dormant, I said that there was no vector to convert it to humans: mozzies. They need a certain amount of temperature for a minimum period of time for the parasite causing malaria in humans to grow to an infectious host in the mozquito.
The parasite isn't dormant, I never said it was. YOU made that up.
And being +5 doesn't make you right, in case anyone tries that card.
You are factually wrong about how malaria works regardless of your opinion on AGW.
That's not what's happening. I hope you know that and are trying to make some sort of point, as opposed to you weighing in on this discussion without the scantest understanding of it.
[sarcasm] Stupid pharmaceutical companies and their damn vaccins ruining our children! [/sarcasm]
Yep, it's only the immigrants that transmit malaria as we all know. Some of those pro-science arseholes think it's something to do with mosquitos but as we know, they pay strict adherence to border controls so that is clearly bullshit.
No, there IS a large reservoir in the Thames Valley. Sorry.
And I never said it was dormant, I said that there was no vector to convert it to humans: mozzies. They need a certain amount of temperature for a minimum period of time for the parasite causing malaria in humans to grow to an infectious host in the mozquito.
I'm not sure if you're trolling or not, but I'll reply on the off chance you are just misinformed.
Plasomdium spp., the causal agent of malaria, lives in mosquitos and humans. It does not live anywhere else, not in the water or ground or air. It reproduces in humans and is spread to a mosquito when a person is bitten. The parasite is the re-transmitted back to a human when that mosquito bites again. The parasite does not require a certain temperature to grow to be infectious within the mosquito. The ONLY way the malaria parasite can be transmitted to a mosquito is via a human host. If no humans within a region have malaria, then there is no way for malaria transmission to occur, and thus no malaria.
Following on from this, if there is no malaria in humans, the only disease reservoir will be the mosquito. If there is 0 prevalence of malaria within a region for longer than the lifespan of a mosquito (typically ~50 days) the malaria parasite will be eliminated.
Excellent response. For other readers desired more detailed information, the CDC has an excellent infographic here: http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/abo...
climate is quite damn important to life. If you don't believe it, try living in a climate like the Antarctic centre, or the middle of the Sahel.
While there is no way to live in the "Antarctic centre" without pretty high levels of life support technology their are many millions of people who live in the Sahel. Maybe you meant to write "Sahara"?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Okay how's this:
"World's deadliest tropical disease eliminated from entirely non-tropical continent. Scientists claim victory."
(Not picking on you in particular; it's just that you mention DDT, so this seems like a good place to post.)
For what I can tell, this time round, Malaria was eliminated without a massive DDT campaign (possibly without DDT at all). I can't find a single source on DDT use in this campaign, but here is the summary on how Turkey eliminated malaria recently, and it looks like no DDT was used post 2000 (although it was used heavily earlier).
For those who don't know, DDT use in controversial because it is harmful to birds (and is likely a carcinogen, but then again, what isn't a carcinogen?). However, not using it is also controversial because critics say that environmentalist trying to reduce the use of DDT are causing millions of deaths worldwide by prioritizing wildlife over human lives. FWIW, the World Health Orgainzation still supports using DDT to fight malaria, but it also strongly recommends using newer (and likely less environmentally harmful) pesticides.
The pro-DDT critics of envromentalists often miss one big thing, which gets hammered on in the first liked I posted: a lot of mosquito have gained resistance to DDT (and other pesticides). Just like overuse of antibiotics leads to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, so does the overuse of pesticides lead to pesticide-resistant mosquito. The link makes that pretty clear:
By 1999/2000, resistance to 12 insecticides (DDT, dieldrin, malathion, fenitrothion, pirimiphosmethyl, bendiocarb, deltamethrin, permethrin, lambdacyhalothrin, eofenprox, cyfluthrin and propoxur) was reported for specimens of An. sacharovi, in both laboratory cultures and wild-caught mosquitoes collected in the malarious areas of Adana, Adiyaman, Antalya, Aydn, and Mugla in southern Turkey. In Adana, Adiyaman and Antalya, An. sacharovi was susceptible only to malathion and pirimiphos-methyl.
That's kind of scary. It makes it clear that we need a plan B for killing mosquitoes other than wide-spread use of pesticides, because existing pesticides are already loosing their effectiveness. New pesticides will eventually suffer the same fate too.
I'm not sure how specific you are talking about but it's all females of the Anopheles genus which includes at least 35 different species. Any colored region on this map is a region in which malaria can be spread. http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/ima...
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
I'll keep drinking my gin and tonic just in case.
Malaria isn't just a tropical disease. When I lived in Ottawa (most definitely not tropical), I went by the cemetery to those who built the Rideau canal, approximately 1000 people died building it, half of those from malaria. In 1830 one section of the canal had almost 800 cases of malaria out of 1300 workers. We just DDTed the hell out of everything in the 50's and 60's and pretty much wiped out malaria in North America
The Who attributes success to improved surveillance systems, better mosquito control, and greater collaboration across borders, and wants everyone to know that their next show will be on april 27th in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at the Air Canada Centre.
We received a postcard from Malaria that said something along the lines of "Fine, be that way! We're leaving for good!"
Malaria used to be widespread in countries like the Netherlands, which is decidedly non-tropical. They managed to eradicate it by treating patients and killing mosquitos using DDT. The reason it's now a "tropical" disease is because tropical countries are poor.
For those interested in learning more:
A widespread and potentially lethal human infectious disease, at its peak malaria infested every continent, except Antarctica.
The coastal plains of southern Italy fell from international prominence when malaria expanded in the sixteenth century. At roughly the same time, in the coastal marshes of England, mortality from "marsh fever" or "tertian ague" (ague: via French from medieval Latin acuta (febris), acute fever) was comparable to that in sub-Saharan Africa today. William Shakespeare was born at the start of the especially cold period that climatologists call the "Little Ice Age", yet he was aware enough of the ravages of the disease to mention it in eight of his plays.
Malaria was not referenced in the "medical books" of the Mayans or Aztecs. European settlers and their West African slaves likely brought malaria to the Americas in the 16th century.
In 1717, epidemiologist Giovanni Maria Lancisi related the prevalence of malaria in swampy areas to the presence of flies and recommended swamp drainage to prevent it.
Map of Malaria deaths in the USA in 1880: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_malaria#/media/File:AL1887_pg190_Map_Death_from_Malaria_(US,_1880_Census).jpg
In the United States, the National Malaria Eradication Program (NMEP) was launched on 1 July 1947. This federal program — with state and local participation — had succeeded in eradicating malaria in the United States by 1951. Prior to the establishment of the NMEP, malaria had been endemic across much of the United States. By the 1930s, it had become concentrated in 13 southeastern states. (For example, in the Tennessee River Valley it had a prevalence of about 30% in 1933.)
Malaria elimination has already been achieved in most of Europe, North America, Australia, North Africa and the Caribbean, and parts of South America, Asia and Southern Africa, according to the Malaria Elimination Group at UCSF.
That's not how it's measured. Your ignorance knows no bounds. No new cases. Nobody getting it there means it's eliminated.
Nobody uses your measure, because it'd make it impossible for people to seek international treatment. Something that's common, and quite safe (even with the Ebola scare in the US, that was a few people who broke protocol making the scare larger than the risk).
Learn to love Alaska
Here you tell us you are a racist and xenophobe, also known as a lack of self-esteem, something that is not helpful for any positive cause.
Racist and xenophobic? Diseases have always spread through large human migrations. As TFS flat-out states, there are regions in the world where these diseases still exist, and people bring disease with them where they go. It can happen with Malaria, it certainly happened to Western Hemisphere civilizations when European colonizers arrived. It's just one of the pitfalls of migration.
They need a certain amount of temperature for a minimum period of time for the parasite causing malaria in humans to grow to an infectious host in the mozquito.
This is nonsense.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Until WWI and partly till WWII the region I live, Karlsruhe, Germany, was Malaria infested. Not sure if the extremely cold winter from 1945 till 1949 had a play in it but meanwhile we have no Malaria since decades.
On the other hand we are doing special anti Mosquito spraying here more or less every year. Simply to keep their numbers down.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Mosquitoes should have been eliminated
Casteism
Malaria was endemic in Italy and southern Greece within living memory. Diseases with appropriate symptoms were endemic in Frane and even southern Britain in the Georgian and Regency periods.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"