World Bracing for Yet Another Mosquito-Borne Health Threat

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World Bracing for Yet Another Mosquito-Borne Health Threat

 

 

http://www.americanfreepress.net/11_15_03/World_Bracing_for_/world_bracing_f

or_.html

 

Ironically, the rise of globalism, which has increased contact among the

world’s populations, could eventually be responsible for bringing about its

downfall, too.

 

 

 

Exclusive to American Free Press

 

By Jack Phillips

 

 

 

Besides malaria and West Nile virus, dengue fever is another mosquito-borne

threat to the world’s people. With as many as 50 million cases worldwide,

2.5 billion people are at risk.

 

Dengue fever used to be considered a benign disease of visitors to the

tropics. The first recorded epidemic occurred in 1879, over 200 years ago.

Impeded by slow transportation, sailing ships, there were 10- to 40-year

intervals between major epidemics. But the situation changed when a global

pandemic originated in Southeast Asia after World War II. Today, the Centers

for Disease Control considers it to be the most important viral disease.

 

Four different dengue virus serotypes, isolated from one another, infested

the tropics for a long time.

 

However, the geographical distribution of these four viruses and their

mosquito vectors has expanded. And more frequent exposure to multiple

serotypes resulted in concomitant outbreaks of both dengue and a frequently

fatal complication called dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF).

 

The first DHF epidemic occurred in Southeastern Asia in 1950. By 1975 it was

a leading cause of hospitalization and death for children in many countries

in that region.

 

Those who survive infection from a single serotype of the dengue virus are

immune for life to that type and protected, for a short time, against the

other three.

 

When only one type was present in an area, one infection meant that there

were no further worries about the disease. Now a subsequent infection, by a

different type of virus, opens up the possibility of DHF. If not properly

treated, death rates from DHF can reach 50 percent. In addition, genetic

variants of the four serotypes are working their way around the world.

 

The expanding geographical distribution of aedes aegypti mosquitoes, and the

rapid rise in urban populations, are causing increasing numbers of people to

be exposed to the disease. At the present time mosquito control is the only

method available for countering these diseases. There is no virus-specific

treatment. There are no vaccines, and there are not likely to be any for

five to 10 years.

 

There is hope that a vaccine capable of countering all four dengue serotypes

can be generated by a process called DNA breeding. This can be likened to

directed evolution. Willem Stemmer invented this and co-founded Maxygen,

Inc. to develop the technology.

 

Candidate vaccines have been successfully tested on mice, and trials with

primates are following.

 

Before 1970 when use of DDT for mosquito control was widespread, only nine

countries had experienced dengue epidemics. Now the disease is endemic in

more than 100 countries.

 

With no new mosquito control technology available, the Public Health

Department emphasis on disease prevention and community reduction of larval

breeding areas is unlikely to have much of an impact.

 

After successfully eradicating mosquitoes from the United States and most of

Central and South America with DDT our government chose to ban the

insecticide, which had been keeping diseases like yellow fever, malaria and

dengue under control. The mosquitoes must be rejoicing, because, by 1997,

they were more widely distributed throughout the world than before the

eradication program began.

 

A reevaluation of the decision to ban DDT ought to be seriously considered.

 

While there is only a small risk of a dengue outbreak in Texas and the

Southeastern United States, northern Mexico and South and Central America

have experienced epidemics of this disease. There were, for example, 390,000

cases in Brazil in 2001 including 670 of DHF.

 

With 40 percent of the world’s population at risk of acquiring a

progressively more dangerous disease, refusing to act would be morally

unacceptable.