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.

7 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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.

    2. 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.

    3. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Kudos to them by tomhath · · Score: 2

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

  4. 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.