4 ms·
Good news. Bad news is that many countries came close to wiping out measles et al. too, but it takes sustained effort to keep things like that.
by inglor_cz 1y ago
Good news.
Bad news is that many countries came close to wiping out measles et al. too, but it takes sustained effort to keep things like that.
- giantg2 1y agoUnlike the measles, HPV is not a good eradication candidate due to the existence of non-human reservoirs.
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoI think you said that backwards. HPV does not have non-human reservoirs, per Wikipedia. (Do you have evidence that it's wrong?)
- giantg2 1y agoAh, looks like I might have read the paper wrong. It's theorized that some HPV strains could also be carried by non-human primates.
- russdill 1y agoHence the "H"
- serial_dev 1y agoAlthough you are (as I understand) right, the question itself is valid, lots of diseases spread to species other than the one that is in the name… Chickenpox, monkeypox, swine flu, or even the Spanish flu.
- russdill 1y agoLots of diseases are potentially zoonotic. When diseases have animals in the name, it often just refers to zoonosis itself (except of course chickenpox). But when diseases or parasites have human in there name, it's almost always because it's a disease that only effects humans.
- thaumasiotes 1y agoNote that there was a human flea, but it's extinct. The fleas you might actually find on a human are dog fleas.
- russdill 1y agoThe human flea is not extinct and is actually one of the counter examples as it does infect other species such as pigs. Humans cannot host infestations of dog fleas. You can be bitten by a dog flea, but you cannot complete it's life cycle. If you find yourself constantly dealing with fleas, you are in the presence of an active infestation from another animal.
- chris_wot 1y agoAmazing how badly the United States is regressing. Literally measles is making a comeback due to idiots like RFK.
- inglor_cz 1y agoThis is now a global problem. The guy who started it, Andrew Wakefield, is British, and we have long had antivaxxers in Europe too. Prior to Covid, the antivaxx scene was vaguely left-and-green oriented, biomoms, vegans and other "very natural" people; you would expect them to vote for Greens or even more alternative parties. This changed abruptly and now the antivaxx scene is mostly rightwing, but the common base is still the same distrust. I wonder if this is the price we pay for radical informational transparency. Nowadays, democratic countries with reasonable freedom of press cannot really prevent their own fuckups from surfacing in the worst possible way. Some people react by complete rejection of anything that comes from "official" channels and become ripe for manipulation from other actors.
- squigz 1y ago> I wonder if this is the price we pay for radical informational transparency. Nowadays, democratic countries with reasonable freedom of press cannot really prevent their own fuckups from surfacing in the worst possible way. Some people react by complete rejection of anything that comes from "official" channels and become ripe for manipulation from other actors. Such people have always existed, unfortunately. I don't think it's a result of anything particularly new.
- inglor_cz 1y agoThe people existed, but a portable always-running conveyor belt of bad news that is addictive enough to make them glued to the screen did not. In the 1990s, you had maybe 15 minutes a day on average to consume news, either from a paper newspaper, or from an evening TV relation. Now, quite a lot of people spend 20 times as much time doomscrolling. Of course the impact will be much more massive.