Blogs

10/25/10 Blog Post #1**: The Fever**

In this "diavlog," Sonia Shah, author of The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years, gives her expert ice on the past, present, and future issues of the Malaria disease. Malaria is a parasitic protozoon that is transmitted to humans through mosquito bites. The disease infects about 250 million people per year, predominantly in Africa, and kills about 1 million. Recently, Malaria has gained status; the Gates Foundation has donated $100 million to the research of a vaccine; Jeff Sachs, an economist at Columbia University, has commented on the issues malaria presents to the economies of countries it infects. Sachs believes that Malaria is the cause of poverty, not the other way around. He has found that countries affected by Malaria actually have an average economic growth rate 1.3% lower than those without the disease. If Sachs’s theory is true, wiping out the Malaria disease in a specific area will be enough to spark the growth of the area’s economy. However, it is not as simple as this. Sonia elaborates on factors such as the impractical usage of bed nets, the subpar effectiveness of current vaccines, the fact that the vaccines require either multiple or annual injections, and cost of vaccine. In addition, Sonia comments on the varying habits of mosquitoes of different locations, district level decision making and how these factors pose problems in the eradication of the disease. Also, the majority of people who receive treatment are generally tourists and the military mainly because of the high cost. When a friend of mine went to Nicaragua, he took anti-malaria pills before, during, and after the trip. This is done to insure the containment of the disease.

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/30853?&in=33:48&out=39:35