4 ms·

One thing the news stories never mention is that the death toll from malaria every day is comparable to the total deaths in this recent Ebola outbreak: http://

by guscost 12y ago

One thing the news stories never mention is that the death toll from malaria every day is comparable to the total deaths in this recent Ebola outbreak: http://www.malariaworld.org/lastweek http://www.malariaworld.org/lastweek

001sky 12y ago
This is missing the point. Ebola is a far more dangerous pathogen. I dont think this needs further explanation.
- guscost 12y ago
  The death toll from malaria throughout history is orders and orders of magnitude beyond that of Ebola. I don't see how there is any way you can accurately describe it as "a far more dangerous pathogen."
  - zo1 12y ago
    I think people find ebola more frightening. Even if it's caused a tiny amount of deaths compared to other, less frightening diseases.
    - 001sky 12y ago
      This is true, but Its a Biosafety level 4 pathogen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level So its "literally more dangerous".
      - cmdrfred 12y ago
        That is because no approved treatment is available for ebola if zmap is effective it will be level 2 like malaria soon enough.
        001sky 12y ago
        The Hemoraggic fevers are not likely ever to be considered similar to Malaria in objective risk. More likely to remain in the same league as Smallpox, which is still class 4.
  - privong 12y ago
    You are taking "dangerous" to mean "total number of people killed", while an equally reasonable definition is "likelikhood of dying if you contract it". It all depends on what criteria is being used to define "dangerous".
    - guscost 12y ago
      Absolutely. I'm using the word in the sense of a "public health hazard" rather than the "likelihood of not having a good time once you personally are infected" but there is a valid case for not wanting to contract either disease.
  - pmontra 12y ago
    Malaria kills more people than ebola (up to now) but cars kill twice as much as malaria does (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-re...). You could blame me for comparing deaths by cars with deaths by pathogens but let me explain. Malaria and ebola can't be compared, malaria and cars can. Malaria and ebola are transmitted in very different way. You get malaria if you live in areas where some species of mosquitos carry the malaria plasmodium. This means that it doesn't get you if you don't enter one of those areas. You can't get malaria in NYC. You can be hit by a car there because cars are definitely endemic in NYC as they are in most of the world. I'm worried by malaria. I don't like the side effects of it prophylaxis and I don't want to risk getting sick (the prophylaxis are not completely effective) so I don't travel in areas where it's endemic. I sincerely hope we can make a vaccine against it. I'm also worried by cars as anybody else and I take the usual measures (watch left and right before crossing a street, drive carefully) but there are few places to hide, right? I'm much more worried by ebola because if it gets big enough there will be little we can do to stop it: it's going to overcome quarantines and get to us in our cities across the oceans and it kills with 50% efficiency. If we want to think about something that could send the human population back to 3 billion in a few years we shouldn't look at malaria or cars, but at ebola. That's why also to me this is "a far more dangerous pathogen." Let's concentrate on ebola now, we'll get back to malaria when we'll have fixed it.
arrrg 12y ago
And? I’m not sure what the point is. The effect on the affected countries is still disastrous. Do you think having to fight Ebola on top of Malaria is harmless? Do you think it is worth considering whether a better response was and maybe still is possible to end this quickly (and be better prepared in the future)? Malaria is a huge disaster. The Ebola epidemic is, too, in the affected countries. (I couldn’t care less about scared idiots in Europe and the US.) Both are.
- guscost 12y ago
  Sure, the Ebola epidemic is still a disaster for public health in the affected places. Nobody is arguing otherwise. But it's a bit strange to see all this American media FUD after years and years of not a word about all the destruction caused by malaria (apart from that Bill Gates project), no?
bsder 12y ago
Oy, look up the word "contagious", please. This has the potential to make malaria look like a walk in the park.
- guscost 12y ago
  And a random asteroid has the potential to totally like explode the planet and kill everyone. The difference is that I'm talking about present reality.
- cmdrfred 12y ago
  In 2012, malaria caused an estimated 207 million clinical episodes, and 627,000 deaths. Source: CDC.gov
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > This has the potential to make malaria look like a walk in the park. Based on what, really ? It may be exponential in some area but not in another with different climate conditions and genetic pool. We have NO IDEA at this stage.
jleader 12y ago
You're comparing a fairly stable, relatively well understood danger with a rapidly growing, less well understood danger. Elsewhere in this discussion, someone quotes a CDC estimate that by the end of the year the number of ebola cases could reach 100k to 1.4 million. Taking the lower end of the range, that's 100k new cases in 3 months, so the number of cases grows by a factor greater than 10 in 3 months.
wtallis 12y ago
Since the Ebola outbreak is still growing exponentially, this also means that the death toll of the next three weeks alone will match the daily death toll of malaria, and if it continues to grow exponentially, Ebola will be killing more per day than malaria by around the end of the year.

by guscost 12y ago

001sky 12y ago

This is missing the point. Ebola is a far more dangerous pathogen. I dont think this needs further explanation.

guscost 12y ago
The death toll from malaria throughout history is orders and orders of magnitude beyond that of Ebola. I don't see how there is any way you can accurately describe it as "a far more dangerous pathogen."
- zo1 12y ago
  I think people find ebola more frightening. Even if it's caused a tiny amount of deaths compared to other, less frightening diseases.
  - 001sky 12y ago
    This is true, but Its a Biosafety level 4 pathogen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level So its "literally more dangerous".
    - cmdrfred 12y ago
      That is because no approved treatment is available for ebola if zmap is effective it will be level 2 like malaria soon enough.
      - 001sky 12y ago
        The Hemoraggic fevers are not likely ever to be considered similar to Malaria in objective risk. More likely to remain in the same league as Smallpox, which is still class 4.
- privong 12y ago
  You are taking "dangerous" to mean "total number of people killed", while an equally reasonable definition is "likelikhood of dying if you contract it". It all depends on what criteria is being used to define "dangerous".
  - guscost 12y ago
    Absolutely. I'm using the word in the sense of a "public health hazard" rather than the "likelihood of not having a good time once you personally are infected" but there is a valid case for not wanting to contract either disease.
- pmontra 12y ago
  Malaria kills more people than ebola (up to now) but cars kill twice as much as malaria does (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-re...). You could blame me for comparing deaths by cars with deaths by pathogens but let me explain. Malaria and ebola can't be compared, malaria and cars can. Malaria and ebola are transmitted in very different way. You get malaria if you live in areas where some species of mosquitos carry the malaria plasmodium. This means that it doesn't get you if you don't enter one of those areas. You can't get malaria in NYC. You can be hit by a car there because cars are definitely endemic in NYC as they are in most of the world. I'm worried by malaria. I don't like the side effects of it prophylaxis and I don't want to risk getting sick (the prophylaxis are not completely effective) so I don't travel in areas where it's endemic. I sincerely hope we can make a vaccine against it. I'm also worried by cars as anybody else and I take the usual measures (watch left and right before crossing a street, drive carefully) but there are few places to hide, right? I'm much more worried by ebola because if it gets big enough there will be little we can do to stop it: it's going to overcome quarantines and get to us in our cities across the oceans and it kills with 50% efficiency. If we want to think about something that could send the human population back to 3 billion in a few years we shouldn't look at malaria or cars, but at ebola. That's why also to me this is "a far more dangerous pathogen." Let's concentrate on ebola now, we'll get back to malaria when we'll have fixed it.

arrrg 12y ago

And? I’m not sure what the point is. The effect on the affected countries is still disastrous. Do you think having to fight Ebola on top of Malaria is harmless? Do you think it is worth considering whether a better response was and maybe still is possible to end this quickly (and be better prepared in the future)? Malaria is a huge disaster. The Ebola epidemic is, too, in the affected countries. (I couldn’t care less about scared idiots in Europe and the US.) Both are.

guscost 12y ago
Sure, the Ebola epidemic is still a disaster for public health in the affected places. Nobody is arguing otherwise. But it's a bit strange to see all this American media FUD after years and years of not a word about all the destruction caused by malaria (apart from that Bill Gates project), no?

bsder 12y ago

Oy, look up the word "contagious", please. This has the potential to make malaria look like a walk in the park.

guscost 12y ago
And a random asteroid has the potential to totally like explode the planet and kill everyone. The difference is that I'm talking about present reality.
cmdrfred 12y ago
In 2012, malaria caused an estimated 207 million clinical episodes, and 627,000 deaths. Source: CDC.gov
ekianjo 12y ago
> This has the potential to make malaria look like a walk in the park. Based on what, really ? It may be exponential in some area but not in another with different climate conditions and genetic pool. We have NO IDEA at this stage.

jleader 12y ago

You're comparing a fairly stable, relatively well understood danger with a rapidly growing, less well understood danger. Elsewhere in this discussion, someone quotes a CDC estimate that by the end of the year the number of ebola cases could reach 100k to 1.4 million. Taking the lower end of the range, that's 100k new cases in 3 months, so the number of cases grows by a factor greater than 10 in 3 months.

wtallis 12y ago

Since the Ebola outbreak is still growing exponentially, this also means that the death toll of the next three weeks alone will match the daily death toll of malaria, and if it continues to grow exponentially, Ebola will be killing more per day than malaria by around the end of the year.