Dengue fever.
Posted on 12/25/2009 12:51:35 AM PST by myknowledge
QUEENSLAND researchers believe they have found a way to to control the spread of dengue fever, which afflicts more than 50 million people worldwide every year.
The team at the University of Queensland's (UQ) School of Biological Sciences, led by Professor Scott O'Neill, is investigating infecting mosquitoes that transmit dengue fever with a bacterium that shortens their lifespan, limiting their ability to infect humans with the dengue virus.
Professor O'Neill said this approach may be even more effective than first thought.
"In a surprising development we have found that mosquitoes carrying this bacterium - known as Wolbachia - are resistant to a range of pathogens that cause disease in humans including dengue, Chikungunya and malaria parasites," Professor O'Neill said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytelegraph.com.au ...
Dengue fever.
"What this means is our original proposed method for dengue control may be more effective than we had previously considered and may even be extended to a range of other diseases in the future."
As someone who is currently battling a bout of tropica malaria (plasmodia falsciparium, I think) and has many friends, including my hubby, come down with dengue, this is a wonderful development. I think I understood that this bacterium while mostly working on the dengue mosquito may shorten the lifespan of the malaria mosquito, too. That is all good.
I hate Rachel Carson.
:-/
From what I have heard it doesn't sound like Obamacare will affect drug company profits so much at all. The drug companies made a deal with Obama, before work in congress got underway, to voluntarily give up $80 billion in income over 10 years if no more restrictive legislation was passed. Sounds like a lot, but they were expected to net $2.4 trillion in that time, so it's around 3%. An amendment to allow importation of drugs from certain advanced countries did not pass. No changes have been announced that would allow Medicare to save on drug costs. The drug companies spent $200 million dollars lobbying congress and they evidently got what they wanted since the bill included no fundamental changes in the status quo.
It's actually kind of odd that Obama painted the insurance companies as villains but said very little about drug costs.
Wonder what will happen when their experiment with biologic weapons blows up.
DDT is a simple, cheap weapon.
Ping...
” It’s actually kind of odd that Obama painted the insurance companies as villains but said very little about drug costs. “
Do you REALLY believe it’s odd that Obama and the democrats acted hypocritically?????????
Mosquito Tax coming
Don't hate Rachel, she is beyond need for our hate, there in the ninth ring along with other, less successful, mass murderers like Stalin.
/mark
She is beyond our ability to affect her, that is true. But let me get over this particular bout of malaria which at first responded to the artesunate but is now fighting back. I know it will die, but it is putting up a fierce battle. At the moment I hate her. When I stop with the headache and the upset stomach and the fever, then I’ll return to a more objective perspective.
“Wolbachia is a genus of inherited bacteria which infects arthropod species, including a high proportion of insects. It is one of the world’s most common parasitic microbes and is possibly the most common reproductive parasite in the biosphere. One study concludes that more than 16% of neotropical insect species carry this bacterium and as many as 25-70% of all insect species are estimated to be potential hosts.”
Here’s the weird part:
“Wolbachia are known to cause four different phenotypes:
* Male killing: death of infected males.
* Feminization: infected males develop as females or infertile pseudo-females.
* Parthenogenesis: reproduction of infected females without males. Some scientists have suggested that parthenogenesis may always be attributable to the effects of Wolbachia. An example of a parthenogenic species is the Trichogramma wasp, which has evolved to procreate without males with the help of Wolbachia. Males are rare in this tiny species of insect, possibly because many have been killed by that very same strain of Wolbachia.
* Cytoplasmic incompatibility: the inability of Wolbachia-infected males to successfully reproduce with uninfected females or females infected with another Wolbachia strain.
Several species are so dependent on Wolbachia that they are unable to reproduce effectively without the bacteria in their bodies. Wolbachia are present in mature eggs, but not mature sperm. Only infected females pass the infection on to their offspring.”
I am part of nature. Just like a lion will eat a hyena and will destroy its enemies, I will search out and KILL those who try to destroy me. I am at the top of the food chain and I intend to stay there. DEATH TO ALL MOSQUITOES!
Lots of Dengue here in the Philippines. Our province had 300 plus cases last year, and since most cases are mild and never get seen in the hospital, probably many times that number.
My Father was a Texas A&M Veterinary grad shortly after WWII. The screw worm fly was devastating South Texas cattle herds. They came up with the idea of releasing massive quantities of neutered male flies, females could not mate twice.
Conventional wisdom of the day thought this a silly idea and a waste of money. Do we hear anything about the screw worm scourge today?
Vector control is proven effective time and again. As to malaria, may the shade of Rachel Carson be condemned to carry tons of mosquito nets through Hell for eternity. Free DDT!
How many people must die before DDT is used again? The way things are today it could take 99.9% of the earth before the elites act to save themselves and only themselves.
I shall pray for rapid relief and recovery for you.
The elites are not in danger. When they cut the population in half they will start to think about it.
re: unintended consequences.
Malaria used to be big in the US, but was reduced by drying up a lot of ponds and stagnant water. Probably changed the local fauna, etc. But not enough to outweigh the benefit of eradicating the disease.
Probably the same with this, except that the effect may be less because the mosquitos are not completely gone, they are merely living shorter lives.
The oligarchy must be rushing as I type to destroy this progress as fast and as fully as they can.
Rachel Carson was just another tool of the clueless ones who insist with the critters that we have to reduce the world population to 200 million.
They are working hard on it.
Great example, thanks. I agree, much better to relive human suffering than to hold to some sort of "noble fantasy" about the value of mosquitoes. Nature is affected by everything and is more resilient than liberals would have people believe. I was just really pondering out loud in my question.
It shouldn’t make a lot of difference, since Fat Albert has only given us 10 more years to live.
As if even he could spend all that dough in a mere 10 years.
You may have hit on the democrat's plan for how to deal with the massive debt they are laying up for us and all future generations...they just don't plan there to be any future generations, then the dem's behavior makes perfect sense.
The government makes most of the money on drug sales through various layers of taxes. Do they realize the savings are not as they seem?
“
QUEENSLAND researchers believe they have found a way to to control the
spread of dengue fever, which afflicts more than 50 million people worldwide
every year.
“
Well, if the Aussies find someway to control dengue fever, it will
come as welcome news to Texas.
IIRC, Texas had a modest outbreak of this miserable affliction
(probably a gift from Mexico).
I remember reading about dengue fever in a colorful book by an epidemiologist
maybe 25 years ago. Sounded like a miserable experience!!!
ObamaCare will shut down massive amounts of research - but this looks mainly private.
Then again, with Socialism it'll be hard to produce the "Bill Gates" types of the future - so that kind of money will dry up too. Under dems the people with money are corrupt government workers who "know how to play the game" and know little else.
I owe you an apology. One of the manifestations in me is a loss of certain neurological functions, like the one which gives me pause to think before I say or post something and my sense of humor. I appreciate your prayers. This particular bout has a headache which is pretty bad. I’m wondering if the malaria parasite here has developed a resistance to artesunate.
The way this head is pounding today I might be part of that reduction. This is day four and my head is still bad. I just took a narc pain pill. Watch my posts in two hours. You may be able to tell if it kicks in. LOL!
I had to look up artesunate, my experience with antimalarials is limited to atabrine as a preventative measure. That was bad enough (bitter tasting burps?), actually having malaria and worrying about the efficacy of the drug would make Job grumpy.
PRAYERS . . .
stress related?
You know the origin of such head pain?
Does the migraine combo that includes caffeine help?
I really think the headache is malaria related. It’s always a challenge to figure out the origin of a specific headache to know which med to take for it. But this one comes and goes in direct response to swallowing artesunate.
But it is coming back after a third day of med when usually the headache is gone completely by then.
I always need prayer.
Dengue is a terrible disease. It doesn’t often cause death, but it was a significant cause of morbidity in the South Pacific during WWII. My father contracted it on Bougainville. He told me it was called “Breakbone Fever” because of the intense muscle pain that accompanies it.
In the late 70’s I treated a couple of cases in tourists returning from Mexico.
YUCK.
Still . . . might be worth checking out . . .
A MORE EXCELLENT WAY
by Henry Wright.
His website is
Prayers for your head etc.
You do have to wonder what will come of deliberately infecting mosquitoes with bacteria.... Seems to me that raises a few unpleasant possibilities for vectoring new and different diseases.
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