Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Sri Lanka, Once Severely Affected By Malaria, Now Absolutely Free Of It (thehindu.com)

Posted by msmash on from the big-achievements dept.

The World Health Organization has declared Sri Lanka free of malaria, calling it a "remarkable public health achievement" for the Indian Ocean island, which was once the most affected nations in the world. The Hindu reports:Sri Lanka has become malaria-free. On September 5, the World Health Organisation officially recognised this huge public health achievement. The WHO certifies a country so when the chain of local transmission is interrupted for at least three consecutive years; the last reported case was in October 2012. With no local transmission reported, Sri Lanka's priority since October 2012 has been to prevent its return from outside, particularly from malaria-endemic countries such as India. There were 95, 49 and 36 cases reported in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively, all contracted outside Sri Lanka. In a commendable initiative, Sri Lanka adopted a two-pronged strategy of targeting both vector and parasite, undertaking active detection of cases and residual parasite carriers by screening populations irrespective of whether malaria symptoms were present.

30 comments

  1. Malaria is for old people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    New we have the new hip Zika.

    1. Re:Malaria is for old people by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Which Sri Lanka doesn't have either

  2. Sanitation For The Win by StormReaver · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So once again, sanitation eliminates disease. Shocking how that works.

    1. Re:Sanitation For The Win by hey! · · Score: 1

      It helps that Malaria has no animal focus other than humans. It means you can focus on places like peoples' homes, where most malaria infections take place.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    2. Re:Sanitation For The Win by omfglearntoplay · · Score: 1

      Not sure about that as this says: Malaria: affects animals as well as humans - The Science Show - ABC ...
      www.abc.net.au/.../malaria-affects-animals.../313...
      Australian Broadcasting Corporation
      May 16, 2009 - There are over 200 species of malaria. Humans are infected by five. But birds, bats, lizards and antelopes are also hosts for malaria parasites.

    3. Re: Sanitation For The Win by backslashdot · · Score: 5, Informative

      By sanitation did you mean intense use of insecticide fogging (that includes spraying indoors), introducing latvicidal fish species on a massive scale, and treating all suspected malaria cases with primaquine?

      If you meant that, yes.

    4. Re:Sanitation For The Win by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      So once again, sanitation eliminates disease.

      This eradication had little to do with "sanitation". There are plenty of diseases spread through poor sanitation, but malaria isn't one of them. It is a vector borne disease spread by mosquitoes. The main strategy was based on identifying, isolating, and treating asymptomatic carriers.

    5. Re:Sanitation For The Win by HBI · · Score: 2

      In the US, seems to have involved mostly draining swamps and eliminating standing water.

      Seems most of the reduction happened before DDT was available.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    6. Re:Sanitation For The Win by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Rubbish. Monkeys can get malaria, as can many other mammals.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:Sanitation For The Win by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      In the US, seems to have involved mostly draining swamps and eliminating standing water.

      Sri Lanka also did that, nearly a century ago. But it didn't eliminate the disease. There were still residual malaria cases. Those cases were eliminated by tracking down and treating the individual carriers, especially asymptomatic carriers. That is not "sanitation".

    8. Re:Sanitation For The Win by HBI · · Score: 1

      "Public health measures" was the term they used to use for that, like confining Typhoid Mary.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    9. Re:Sanitation For The Win by Immerman · · Score: 1

      The relevant question is whether human-infecting species can infect animals as well, which it seems they do not. Species of malaria that only infect animals may be biologically related, but are completely irrelevant from a public health standpoint. Eradicate the human-infecting species within the human population, and the human disease is gone. You need not worry about it surviving in other hosts and reinfecting the human population at a later date.

      Compare to something like rabies, which can infect many different mammals, making it extremely difficult to eradicate. So long as even one rabid mouse is living deep in the forest, the disease will almost certainly return. Worse still if, like ebola or marburg, the virus is native to another species where it causes no problems for the host.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    10. Re:Sanitation For The Win by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Not only are you wrong, but your comment reeks of patronising assumed superiority and a little dash of bigotry. Well done.

    11. Re:Sanitation For The Win by erapert · · Score: 1

      Sri Lanka is not India.

    12. Re:Sanitation For The Win by Immerman · · Score: 1

      True, but they get infected by a different species of malaria that doesn't infect humans (usually, though that may be changing), so it's irrelevant from a public health perspective.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    13. Re:Sanitation For The Win by unixisc · · Score: 1

      When did GP make any mention of India?

    14. Re: Sanitation For The Win by mspohr · · Score: 1

      Malaria eradication has nothing to do with sanitation.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    15. Re:Sanitation For The Win by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Spider monkeys have been used for malaria research.

    16. Re:Sanitation For The Win by jabuzz · · Score: 1

      We managed to eliminate Rabies in the British Isles aka UK and Ireland though it was all the UK at the time over 100 years ago.

      I fact most of mainland Europe is rabies free, basically the EU/EEA pre 1992. Looks like tackling rabies east of the iron curtain was not a priority.

      Anyway given that it can be done it just looks like it takes the appropriate will to do so, which is mostly about the application of money to the problem.

    17. Re: Sanitation For The Win by StormReaver · · Score: 0

      You're under the impression that sanitation equals pristine measures, which isn't the case. Sanitation means cleanliness. Most of the measures undertaken to eliminate Malaria in Sri Lanka involved cleanliness. That's not to say that this form of sanitation is without repercussions (perhaps the sprays cause cancer); but yes, most of the measures described in the article involve sanitation.

      Nowhere in the article did it mention Primaquine. But even if the drug was involved, it doesn't detract from the sanitation effort one bit. The drug was one prong of a multifacted approach, and was used where the infection occurred before the sanitation efforts were undertaken. The drug will be largely, if not completely, unnecessary now.

    18. Re:Sanitation For The Win by famebait · · Score: 1

      -1 Ignorant

      --
      sudo ergo sum
  3. John Snow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We can all thank Dr. John Snow for that. Sadly it's going backwards in places like the US where there is no political will to invest to replace sewers that are over one hundred years old.

    1. Re:John Snow by hey! · · Score: 2

      Well Snow was cholera. The US has a long history fighting mosquito-borne diseases going right back to the founding of the nation, although clearly they had no idea of what was going on back then.

      The titan of vector borne disease research was Walter Reed -- the guy they named the Army Medical Center for.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    2. Re:John Snow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quite a shame that someone who did as much good as Walter Reed had their name attached to the travesty that is the Walter Reed Army Medical Center ...

  4. Better Than Florida by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We have a few malaria cases every year here. Sri Lanka does not. It's all just too weird. We also have Dengue fever and Zika as well.

  5. Sri Lanka, Now Severely Affected By Malaria... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sri Lanka, Once Severely Affect By Malaria,
    Now Severely Affected By Malware

  6. Kudos to them by tomhath · · Score: 2

    Diseases can be controlled or eliminated; small pox, polio in many countries. Congratulations Sri Lanka.

  7. And They Have Cinnamon, Too! by BrendaEM · · Score: 1

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    : )

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
  8. great news, but possible dark side by e432776 · · Score: 2

    great news, but they need to be careful not to remain malaria free for some years then have it break out again. Because then immunity in the human population is gone and many more people die, particularly adults, who would normally have some protection (having survived childhood). This happened in Sao Tome in the 1980s, and in many other places as well- good review here.

    This concern is one of the reasons the DDT campaign to eliminate mosquito vectors in the 1950s was never tried in earnest in Subsaharan Africa- program leaders were concerned that the gains would not be permanent and then the effects of resurgent falciparum malaria on a newly immunologically naive human population would be worse.

    Good news all the same- they must stay vigilant.

  9. Progress by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Toward a better future. Also, it's worth noting that a large portion of the funding for fighting malaria comes from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In the long run, Bill will be remember for his philanthropy.