Longtime famvin subscriber and supporter Patricia Tryon has posted some interesting links on malaria on her Sept. 28 “blog” pageThese four links cover such areas as
– plants used to cure malaria
– malaria as the scourge of Tanzania
Worst Jobs in Science, which includes this inspiring tidbit: In the early evening, when mosquito activity is busiest, a mosquito dinner—er, researcher—finds a nice buggy area and sets himself up inside a mosquito-netting tent with a gap at the bottom. Mosquitoes fly in low and get trapped inside, where the researcher sits stoically, sacrificing his skin to science.
1:50 PM
Possible malaria cure at Kew? Or maybe a widely grown herb, kapapula. At Kew site, there’s a fascinating working paper on Ethnobotany of the Loita Maasai, which includes a review of plants used to treat malaria.
1:33 PM
Living in the shadow of AIDS in Ghana
11:57 AM
Malaria, scourge of Tanzania – If AIDS has moved through Tanzania like a brush fire, malaria has smoldered for centuries, and while it still kills, and may soon kill in even greater numbers, there has been an emotional accommodation with the threat. Tanzanians live with (and die from) malaria as a fact of life. If children survive the multiple infections that are a part of childhood, they build up some degree of natural immunity.
But most Tanzanians will get malaria again and again, like the flu — sometimes so mildly that they continue showing up for work, sometimes so badly they end up hospitalized, or dead. The effects on the economy are hard to know, but the World Health Organization estimates that it costs Africa $12 billion a year and substantial economic growth. Economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, who has studied the impact of malaria on Africa, says even those numbers don’t capture the long-term, cumulative devastation of the disease. Malarious nations don’t just lose a percentage of their economic growth a year, they get poorer and poorer relative to the rest of the world.
“We find that it causes the gap to grow between the rich countries and the malarious countries, until after decades and centuries, the malarious countries are living at a tiny fraction of the income levels of the rich [countries],” he says. As the developed world has become accustomed to that gap, and to the fact that malaria is pandemic in Africa, it has lost sight of the crucial role malaria has played in destabilizing, impoverishing and demoralizing the continent. Even though Sachs estimates the price tag for aggressive war on the disease at $2 billion to $3 billion a year, wealthy nations are offering only a fraction of that figure.
“Malaria is devastating Africa, and the fact that it has been for a long time is no solace,” he says. “If malaria could be controlled in Africa, it would be one of the pivotal points of breakthrough to economic development and political stability.”
The links may be found at at
http://tryon.blogspot.com/
Tags: Health, Malaria
