CDC issues malaria alert, 5 locally contracted cases reported in USA!

[marylander1940]

Let's see how long till our resident Dr. @Unicorn recommends we all get vaccinated! 

 

US health alert over malaria cases in Florida and Texas

WWW.BBC.COM

---

Two states are seeing locally acquired cases - the first spread inside the US in 20 years.

 

[Guest]

Lots of research, but no vaccine yet approved in the US (we're getting close, though--some are being used in Africa). The vaccine used in Africa is for the more severe form of malaria, falciparum, and I understand that the malaria seen in the US recently is vivax. 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Unicorn

[pubic_assistance]

I am more worried about what Dr. Fauci, will have to say than what Doctor @Unicorn will share with us. Do we all have to stay home again for six months ? 🤔

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

I am more worried about what Dr. Fauci, will have to say than what Doctor @Unicorn will share with us. Do we all have to stay home again for six months ? 🤔

Malaria's not contagious (person to person). At worst, we can all wear DEET for 6 months....

[EZEtoGRU]

Yet another reason not to visit Florida or Texas.  The list keeps growing!

[Guest]

As mentioned on the Repel bottle, DEET also protects from Chikungunya, which is my favorite name for a disease because it sounds like one of my favorite chicken dishes, Chicken Korma.

This very painful disease, called "bone-crushing disease," is similar to the other bone-crushing illness, whose name is my 2nd favorite, O'nyong 'nyong:

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

48 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

I am more worried about what Dr. Fauci, will have to say than what Doctor @Unicorn will share with us. Do we all have to stay home again for six months ? 🤔

Don't worry, it'll only be for a few weeks to flatten the curve.

And my other favorite:  Let me insert just the tip

[marylander1940]

3 hours ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

Don't worry, it'll only be for a few weeks to flatten the curve.

And my other favorite:  Let me insert just the tip

I don't know why your last sentence sounds kinky!

4 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

I am more worried about what Dr. Fauci, will have to say than what Doctor @Unicorn will share with us. Do we all have to stay home again for six months ? 🤔

Nobody was asked to storm the beaches of Normandy, survive the recession, walk hundreds of miles looking for a better life, became an indenture servant, etc. and yet it was such a tragedy for some to stay home watching hundreds of channels, using zoom, peloton, etc. 

[pubic_assistance]

Just now, marylander1940 said:

 it was such a tragedy for some to stay home watching hundreds of channels, using zoom, peloton, etc. 

Ummm...It IS when they make you stay home for months deleting all your sources of income and yet still expect you to pay all your bills.

Not everyone can live on welfare checks.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

Ummm...It IS when they make you stay home for months deleting all your sources of income and yet still expect you to pay all your bills.

Not everyone can live on welfare checks.

Of course, a few of us had guaranteed jobs during the pandemic (albeit with risk), in the healthcare field in 2020. I agree with you, though, it's easy for those living on pensions and social security to say the lockdown was no big deal...

[rvwnsd]

Moderator's Warning: This thread is veering off topic and is becoming political.

Remain on topic (the recent occurrence of malaria cases in the US and the ongoing development of a vaccine) and keep politics out of it. 

[SirBillybob]

Appears to be a few studies launching or already commenced in Bethesda. A few other trials are completed. I searched USA ongoing recruiting and not yet recruiting. 

https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT02639299?locStr=USA&country=United States&distance=50&cond=Malaria&intr=Vaccine&aggFilters=status:not rec&rank=1

https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05913973?locStr=USA&country=United States&distance=50&cond=Malaria&intr=Vaccine&aggFilters=status:not rec&rank=2

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by SirBillybob

[Beancounter]

I contracted malaria while serving in the Peace Corps in Africa in the 70s.  To be honest, I don’t remember much about having it other than a few chills and a fever.  I do remember the doctor telling me there were 3 types of malaria and I had the mildest form.  The most severe form was deadly and could kill within 3 days.  
 

As volunteers we were required to take a medication called Aralen.  I’m not sure of its efficacy but I think its main ingredient was quinine.  After 50 years my memories have faded.  I was exposed to so many tropical diseases unknown here in the States that I’m surprised I survived. 😂 Because of these exposures I was told I shouldn’t donate blood for 10 years, though.  

[jeezifonly]

Thanks for this.

Mosquitos love me. The little ones rampant in SoCA already leave welts on me. I’ll keep my eye open for malaria cases in this location. 😬

[+ Italiano]

My dad got in WWII in Africa as a War Prisoner when he was 22, and almost died. But I guess since then things have changed...

[Guest]

20 hours ago, Italiano said:

My dad got in WWII in Africa as a War Prisoner when he was 22, and almost died. But I guess since then things have changed...

Quinine was available during WW2, and was effective at that time (it's not now). It doesn't surprise me the Nazis didn't provide quinine for their POW's. If I can believe WW2 movies, the Nazis treated their POW's horribly, and the Japanese were even worse. 

[+ Italiano]

18 hours ago, Unicorn said:

Quinine was available during WW2, and was effective at that time (it's not now). It doesn't surprise me the Nazis didn't provide quinine for their POW's. If I can believe WW2 movies, the Nazis treated their POW's horribly, and the Japanese were even worse. 

Actually my father (born and raised in Italy) was a POW of US, not of Germans...After Africa he was sent to a Prisoners Camp here and kept for 2 years.

He told me they were treated relatively nicely. He went back to Italy in 1945.

[CuriousByNature]

On 7/6/2023 at 9:54 AM, Unicorn said:

Quinine was available during WW2, and was effective at that time (it's not now). It doesn't surprise me the Nazis didn't provide quinine for their POW's. If I can believe WW2 movies, the Nazis treated their POW's horribly, and the Japanese were even worse. 

There's a little quinine in tonic water.  But based on what you've written, I suppose I can no longer use 'malaria-prevention' as a reason to drink multiple Gin and Tonics every weekend?   

At least I get a bit of Vitamin C from the lime, so now I'll just tell myself I'm keeping scurvy at bay.

Edited July 16, 2023 by CuriousByNature

[Guest]

On 7/7/2023 at 4:21 AM, Italiano said:

Actually my father (born and raised in Italy) was a POW of US, not of Germans...After Africa he was sent to a Prisoners Camp here and kept for 2 years.

He told me they were treated relatively nicely. He went back to Italy in 1945.

That reminds me of a faux pas I made at a large family reunion a number of years ago. My mother loved going to these giant family reunions of people who shared her maiden name (one only needed to be three generations from a person's maiden name, so I could still go if I wanted to). All of my 1st/2nd/3rd cousins are from Belgium, and over half of the family lives in Belgium or France (the family can trace its roots as far back as 16th Century Strassbourg, on the French/German border), but a substantial number live in Germany. On the formal dinner (at the time all men wore tuxedos), they usually intentionally seat people with more distant cousins, so that one will meet new people. At one point, there was an elderly family patriarch who went up to the podium to speak in a wheelchair.

One of my distant cousins said "That's cousin Frank [not his real name]. He lost his legs in the battle of Stalingrad." Not thinking, I asked "How did he end up fighting with the Red Army?". I was then informed "He was on the other side...". My face turned red as a beet. Throughout the years, I'd heard so many stories of family members fighting for the resistance (even German family members), that I forgot that some were forced to fight with the German armed forces. At the time, my domestic partner was Russian, and he had a good laugh when I told him the story. 

[Luv2play]

On 7/5/2023 at 1:05 PM, Beancounter said:

I contracted malaria while serving in the Peace Corps in Africa in the 70s.  To be honest, I don’t remember much about having it other than a few chills and a fever.  I do remember the doctor telling me there were 3 types of malaria and I had the mildest form.  The most severe form was deadly and could kill within 3 days.  
 

As volunteers we were required to take a medication called Aralen.  I’m not sure of its efficacy but I think its main ingredient was quinine.  After 50 years my memories have faded.  I was exposed to so many tropical diseases unknown here in the States that I’m surprised I survived. 😂 Because of these exposures I was told I shouldn’t donate blood for 10 years, though.  

I always drink lots of gin or vodka with tonic water, which is laced with quinine. Staves off malaria marvelously. Never got the disease.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Luv2play said:

I always drink lots of gin or vodka with tonic water, which is laced with quinine. Staves off malaria marvelously. Never got the disease.

Fortunately, mosquitos which carry malaria can't survive the frozen tundra, but the biggest mosquito I ever saw was one which was biting through my leather jacket when I whacked her, while I was in Anchorage. Alaskans say that mosquitos are the state bird. 

Edited July 16, 2023 by Unicorn

[Luv2play]

I worked a summer in Labrador when I was a student at university. My father said it would toughen me up.

There the joke was the mosquitoes could carry a man off into the woods. They would form swarms that hovered over openings in the woods that appeared like black clouds on the roads as you drove through them in your trucks. Amazing as they splattered on the windshield. 

 

[+ Italiano]

15 hours ago, Unicorn said:

That reminds me of a faux pas I made at a large family reunion a number of years ago. My mother loved going to these giant family reunions of people who shared her maiden name (one only needed to be three generations from a person's maiden name, so I could still go if I wanted to). All of my 1st/2nd/3rd cousins are from Belgium, and over half of the family lives in Belgium or France (the family can trace its roots as far back as 16th Century Strassbourg, on the French/German border), but a substantial number live in Germany. On the formal dinner (at the time all men wore tuxedos), they usually intentionally seat people with more distant cousins, so that one will meet new people. At one point, there was an elderly family patriarch who went up to the podium to speak in a wheelchair.

One of my distant cousins said "That's cousin Frank [not his real name]. He lost his legs in the battle of Stalingrad." Not thinking, I asked "How did he end up fighting with the Red Army?". I was then informed "He was on the other side...". My face turned red as a beet. Throughout the years, I'd heard so many stories of family members fighting for the resistance (even German family members), that I forgot that some were forced to fight with the German armed forces. At the time, my domestic partner was Russian, and he had a good laugh when I told him the story. 

Definitely my father at age 20 didn't choose spontaneously to fight with the Germans

[marylander1940]

On 7/16/2023 at 4:12 PM, Luv2play said:

I worked a summer in Labrador when I was a student at university. My father said it would toughen me up.

There the joke was the mosquitoes could carry a man off into the woods. They would form swarms that hovered over openings in the woods that appeared like black clouds on the roads as you drove through them in your trucks. Amazing as they splattered on the windshield. 

 

Did it work?