Fomite

67 ms·

961.
by Fomite 6y ago
That's because they did their job well. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/MalariaM...
962.
by Fomite 6y ago
Yes. The pause was exactly what should have been done, and every single vaccine specialist I know was both supportive and unsurprised.
963.
by Fomite 6y ago
Personally, I prefer drug safety protocols be based on science, not what people feel, or whether or not it's "good politics".
964.
by Fomite 6y ago
DDT resistance arose during a time when it was extremely intensively used to try to wipe out malaria-carrying mosquito populations. It's certainly sustained by the more moderate uses of it, but at this point, that ship has sort of sail
965.
by Fomite 6y ago
Indeed. Ecological systems are complicated and remarkably resilient.
966.
by Fomite 6y ago
"Big Pharma" has been providing antimalarials pretty much at cost through negotiations with the WHO and other international funders for quite some time now. But cheap drugs - especially since Artemisinin needs to be used as part o
967.
by Fomite 6y ago
One of my Kenyan colleagues casually talked about every time she visited her grandmother, they came down with malaria.
968.
by Fomite 6y ago
Vector control is the primary way that epidemiology and disease ecology have been exploring reducing the burden of malaria (and Dengue, and a number of other diseases). Genetically engineered, effectively sterile mosquito breeds are part of
969.
by Fomite 6y ago
We tried it in Africa. A lot . DDT is great - it's cheap, it's persistent, and there was a heady note of optimism that we might be able to drive malaria to extinction via vector control. Then DDT-resistance developed in the mosqu
970.
by Fomite 6y ago
The parasite has non-human reservoirs, which is one of many reasons that eradicating malaria is extremely difficult. That being said, a protective vaccine even absent herd immunity would be a huge thing.
971.
by Fomite 6y ago
As an infectious disease epidemiologist, after HIV, malaria is probably the next most closely studied and well-funded infectious disease we look into. It's also been a WHO priority for basically the entire existence of the WHO.
972.
by Fomite 6y ago
Malaria eradication did get a massive Manhattan Project-esq push. It just failed.
973.
by Fomite 6y ago
These are somewhat fuzzy terms, because pandemic or epidemic both imply unexpected numbers of cases, not just "lots" of cases. For the most part, malaria is considered an endemic disease with a high incidence rate.
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by Fomite 6y ago
There's a reason the CDC is in Atlanta.
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by Fomite 6y ago
Malaria is a massive drain on the lives, well being and economies of central Africa. An effective malaria vaccine would be huge .
976.
by Fomite 6y ago
There's a lot of debate in the field as to whether or not it's actually possible to eradicate malaria. Partially because mosquito eradication programs failed in the core "malaria belt" even with substantial international
977.
by Fomite 6y ago
As an epidemiologist, this has been the hardest year of my life. I've had a couple complete, "curled up in the stairwell having a breakdown" breakdowns, etc. and I'm relatively safe. The sheer, unrelenting stress this ha
978.
by Fomite 6y ago
One note: VAERS is a voluntary reporting system, and not anything close to a census of vaccine side effects - it's notoriously unreliable. People are watching the COVID-19 vaccines like hawks (for excellent reasons), while there's
979.
by Fomite 6y ago
The rest of the components are also broken down. The components are lipids (fats) meant to protect the mRNA while it's being introduced, some salts for stabilization, and sucrose. Your body knows how to handle all of those perfectly we
980.
by Fomite 6y ago
Talking about side effects that are of public health concern. The smallpox vaccine could blind you if you touched the vaccine site and then your eye. It had a 1 or 2 deaths per million vaccines side effect rate. The live-attenuated polio
981.
by Fomite 6y ago
And the HPV vaccine before that was a virus-like particle vaccine, which was new tech as well. We've effectively run out of low hanging fruit where inactivated or live-attenuated vaccines are really amenable for use.
982.
by Fomite 6y ago
Medical science is slow - and vaccine science moreso, because it is careful. mRNA vaccines were struggling to find a use case. A major pandemic like this is a huge, urgent shot in the arm, both in terms of money and motivation, that acceler
983.
by Fomite 6y ago
Same. Infectious disease epidemiologist, and I am hyped about how cool this is. I got the Pfizer vaccine. This is such a huge step from some of our older vaccines, which had much higher side effect rates, relatively speaking. These vaccin
984.
by Fomite 6y ago
Nope! Just needs to be something with a stable, targetable antigen.
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by Fomite 6y ago
See: C. difficle infections
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by Fomite 6y ago
Interestingly, in several phage-treated patients, the bacteria then had increased susceptibility to antibiotics. Combination therapy is a remarkable thing.
987.
by Fomite 6y ago
Time is a huge deal. There's a conflict right now between sepsis guidelines and antibiotic stewardship guidelines on when you should start treating, and having to wait for both the diagnostic and the phage prep is sort of a problem.
988.
by Fomite 6y ago
mRNA does phase out - they're blueprints that are broken down when they're not needed. The half-life of them is measured in hours: http://book.bionumbers.org/how-fast-do-rnas-and-proteins-deg... Edit: As noted in
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by Fomite 6y ago
There are plenty of programs that think about things like quality of life, etc. Culture and competitiveness is a function of the school itself and the PI specifically.
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by Fomite 6y ago
A couple notes: 1) You needn't necessarily restrict this to tenured professors. Indeed, plenty of new tenure-track professors have both the need and startup resources to potentially hire you if you're likely to boost their group&#

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