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How many people do you know with malaria? It's a tropical region disease. In a pandemic of Covid-19, it is going to affect people all over the world in every re

by djmips 7y ago

How many people do you know with malaria? It's a tropical region disease. In a pandemic of Covid-19, it is going to affect people all over the world in every region.

pengaru 7y ago
The parent mentioned Zika, any such list including Zika would be incomplete without Malaria as well. I agree that covid-19 seems to have a larger potential breadth, and didn't intend to downplay its significance.
ggm 7y ago
How many people do you know with malaria? It's a tropical region disease. No. The name is Italian. It predates Italian colonies in the tropics. It's a disease which was endemic in marshlands believed to be caused by bad air Mal aria and was in Scotland amongst other places. Malaria is not exclusively tropical. Nor is dengue or mosquito borne encephalitis. Tropical wet regions sustain mosquitos. So do cooler climates.
adventured 7y ago
> How many people do you know with malaria? It's a tropical region disease. Malaria is not inherently a tropical region disease. It routinely plagued Europe until the 1950s. Russia for one example had a huge Malaria outbreak in the early 1920s as did Eastern Europe broadly. "Gustavo Pittaluga (1876-1956) estimated that in 1923, 18 million people suffered from malaria in Russia, and that sixty thousand deaths occurred out of a total population of about 110 million (Anigstein, Pittaluga, 1925). Similar observations were made throughout the whole of eastern and south-eastern Europe and the former Ottoman Empire." http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-59702011000200009 http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104...
iso1210 7y ago
> It's a tropical region disease Europe and the U.S. used to have Malaria. The name -- bad air -- is Latin, the Romans thought it originated from bad swamp air. Shakespeare mentioned it time and time again in his plays.
- _ph_ 7y ago
  Yes, but malaria isn't transmitted between humans but requires a certain mosquito to spread. So unless that mosquito reappears (which is an actual threat due to climate change), the malaria isn't randomly spreading to other countries. But the corona virus doesn't have these bariers as it spreads from humans to humans.
  - iso1210 7y ago
    Yes, I guess my point was that malaria can and has existed in europe and america. It is defeated by 1) Wiping out mosquitos (DDT) 2) Limiting chance of mosquitoes biting people (aircon) 3) Limiting the population with malaria (the fewer people with malaria, the less chance of a given mosquito biting someone with malaria and thus becoming a carrier)
- mrec 7y ago
  > Shakespeare mentioned it time and time again in his plays I'm pretty sure what Shakespeare was referencing is a much more general idea prevalent in his day - that smells (not necessarily unpleasant ones) could be poisonous, and could be warded off by opposing "good" smells. This roughly coincided with an explosion of scented-good manufacturing as a cottage industry, although I'm not sure which way the arrow of causation ran there. </digression>
- tremon 7y ago
  the Romans thought it originated from bad swamp air ...which actually isn't that far-fetched for a pre-medical society to conclude, given that mosquitoes breed in warm, still waters.

by djmips 7y ago

How many people do you know with malaria? It's a tropical region disease. In a pandemic of Covid-19, it is going to affect people all over the world in every region.

pengaru 7y ago

The parent mentioned Zika, any such list including Zika would be incomplete without Malaria as well. I agree that covid-19 seems to have a larger potential breadth, and didn't intend to downplay its significance.

ggm 7y ago

How many people do you know with malaria? It's a tropical region disease. No. The name is Italian. It predates Italian colonies in the tropics. It's a disease which was endemic in marshlands believed to be caused by bad air Mal aria and was in Scotland amongst other places. Malaria is not exclusively tropical. Nor is dengue or mosquito borne encephalitis. Tropical wet regions sustain mosquitos. So do cooler climates.

adventured 7y ago

> How many people do you know with malaria? It's a tropical region disease. Malaria is not inherently a tropical region disease. It routinely plagued Europe until the 1950s. Russia for one example had a huge Malaria outbreak in the early 1920s as did Eastern Europe broadly. "Gustavo Pittaluga (1876-1956) estimated that in 1923, 18 million people suffered from malaria in Russia, and that sixty thousand deaths occurred out of a total population of about 110 million (Anigstein, Pittaluga, 1925). Similar observations were made throughout the whole of eastern and south-eastern Europe and the former Ottoman Empire." http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-59702011000200009 http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104...

iso1210 7y ago

> It's a tropical region disease Europe and the U.S. used to have Malaria. The name -- bad air -- is Latin, the Romans thought it originated from bad swamp air. Shakespeare mentioned it time and time again in his plays.

_ph_ 7y ago
Yes, but malaria isn't transmitted between humans but requires a certain mosquito to spread. So unless that mosquito reappears (which is an actual threat due to climate change), the malaria isn't randomly spreading to other countries. But the corona virus doesn't have these bariers as it spreads from humans to humans.
- iso1210 7y ago
  Yes, I guess my point was that malaria can and has existed in europe and america. It is defeated by 1) Wiping out mosquitos (DDT) 2) Limiting chance of mosquitoes biting people (aircon) 3) Limiting the population with malaria (the fewer people with malaria, the less chance of a given mosquito biting someone with malaria and thus becoming a carrier)
mrec 7y ago
> Shakespeare mentioned it time and time again in his plays I'm pretty sure what Shakespeare was referencing is a much more general idea prevalent in his day - that smells (not necessarily unpleasant ones) could be poisonous, and could be warded off by opposing "good" smells. This roughly coincided with an explosion of scented-good manufacturing as a cottage industry, although I'm not sure which way the arrow of causation ran there. </digression>
tremon 7y ago
the Romans thought it originated from bad swamp air ...which actually isn't that far-fetched for a pre-medical society to conclude, given that mosquitoes breed in warm, still waters.