MALARIA
SPREAD BY: Mosquitoes
KILL RATE: 0.2%
DEATH TOLL: 1 million+ per year
As climate change makes parts of the glabal warmer and wetter, populations of the disease's host, the Anopheles mosquito, are likely to swell. Malaria kills by destroying blood cells and causing kidney failure. Resistance has become such a problem that the WHO now supports the use of the controversial insecticide DDT, once widely banned, to control Anopheles populations in Africa.
The life cycle of Malaria
SMALLPOX
SPREAD BY: Bioterrorism or clinical accident.
KILL RATE: 30%
DEATH TOLL: 500 million; 2 million per year in 1960s
Well, this isn't out in the wild. Anymore. Worldwide vaccination programs eradicated smallpox by1980, but 2 government-approved labs in the U.S. and Russia keeps stores of it. A 2006 investigate report by The Guardian determined that, though very unlikely, it could be made from scratch, or someone could just steal it. Since smallpox is very contagious, the CDC would consider even one confirmed case a "public-health emergency". Vaccines exist, but they can cause serious side effects. There is no cure.
Face lesions on boy with Smallpox
WEST NILE VIRUS
SPREAD BY: Mosquitoes
KILL RATE: 4%
DEATH TOLL: 1 086 (U.S. only)
No one knows how West Nile Virus first got to the U.S. in 1999, but in has since exploded across the country. Less than 1% of people end up with severe complications such as meningitis, fatal encephalitis and polio-like paralysis. There is no cure for the infection, though, so stock up on bug spray.
Map of West Nile Virus Risk
EBOLA
SPREAD BY: Body fluids
KILL RATE: 50%-90%
DEATH TOLL: 1 507
Ebola is so deadly that outbreaks have, to this point, quickly burned themselves out; direct contact with infected individuals is required for transmission, and victims generally expire before they can travel far. The virus strips in the lining in victim's blood vessels, causing massive internal bleeding. Woe betide humanity if Ebola mutates and becomes transmissible by air.
An Ebola victim
DENGUE FEVER
SPREAD BY: Mosquitoes
KILL RATE: 0.05%
DEATH TOLL: 10 000+ per year
The mosquitoes that carry dengue, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, thrive in warm, wet climates. Like malaria, dengue fever (a.k.a. "breakbone fever") is a debilitating disease. Of those who develop more aggressive dengue hemorrhagic fever, 5% die, typically from internal bleeding.
4 comments:
It’s impossible to avoid mosquito bites completely. Even Dr. Lyle Petersen, the CDC’s lead authority on WNV, got it last summer when he was bitten by mosquitoes on the way to his mailbox in Colorado.
Telling people about the only published treatment for WNV seems to me like more useful advice.
In fact, our approach should be a general viral antidote, good for Ebola, Dengue, and even Smallpox. Phase IV clinical trials could be conducted this afternoon to see if we're right.
GenoMed has had 80% treatment success rate in people (23 of 29 improved) and horses (8 of 10 survived), and 50% in birds (6 of 12 survived). Our first 8 human WNV patients were published in a peer-reviewed medical journal in 2004 (1). This is sufficient for our treatment to officially exist in both the medical and legal senses.
The earlier our treatment is begun, the better the outcome.
We're offering our treatment again for free this summer, hoping to record the outcomes of anybody who uses it. Anybody who wants to download our WNV treatment protocol can do so for free at any time by clicking on the "West Nile trial" link on our company’s homepage at www.genomed.com.
Dave Moskowitz MD
CEO & Chief Medical Officer
GenoMed, Inc. (Ticker symbol GMED on OTC Pink Sheets)
“The public health company™”
1. Moskowitz DW, Johnson FE. The central role of angiotensin I-converting enzyme in vertebrate pathophysiology. Curr Top Med Chem. 2004;4(13):1433-54. PMID: 15379656 (For PDF file, click on paper #6 at: http://www.genomed.com/index.cfm?action=investor&drill=publications)
ebola is transmissible by air. its kill rate depends on the strain. woe is you if you catch the zaire strain as its kill rate is 90%. marburgs is also another filovirus you need to watch for.
Not true. Not one of the several strains of Filovirus (Zaire ebolavirus (ZEBOV),Sudan ebolavirus (SEBOV),Reston ebolavirus (REBOV),Côte d'Ivoire ebolavirus (CIEBOV) or Bundibugyo ebolavirus are transmissable by air. Infection can only occur via direct contact with bodily fluids or tissues of an infected indevidual additionally there are no known vectors for the virus such as mosquitos or fleas (unless you count natural resivoirs of the virus in bats).
Anonymous,
It was reported in todays news that the Ebola virus has mutated and is now an Airborne virus and can travel from one species to another. Anyone who looks at the photos can see the healthcare workers with more that just PPD. Were are introuble now! The Ebola virus looks exactly like Johannes Hegvelius' hundreds year old print of the Draco Constellation which is now under public domain.
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