The sooner we get serious and start to deal with mosquitos the better. We already know what needs to be done [1], now all we need to do is get on with. How many millions of people have to die before we solve the problem of mosquito borne disease once and for all. Are we really going to sit around for decades debating if we should use this technology or not?<p>Edit. For those who want to understand more about this gene driver approach (it is pretty complex and amazing genetics) this review is the best I have been able to find [2].<p>1. <a href="http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.3439.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.343...</a><p>2. <a href="http://longnow.org/revive/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Alphey-AnnRevEnt-2014-genetic-control-of-mosquitoes-copy.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://longnow.org/revive/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Alphey-...</a>
Maybe it's time to deploy some DDT...<p><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/silent_spring_turns_50_biographer_william_souder_clears_up_myths_about_rachel_carson_.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...</a><p><i>Rachel Carson never called for the banning of pesticides. She made this clear in every public pronouncement, repeated it in an hourlong television documentary about Silent Spring, and even testified to that effect before the U.S. Senate. Carson never denied that there were beneficial uses of pesticides, notably in combatting human diseases transmitted by insects, where she said they had not only been proven effective but were morally “necessary.”</i>
Brazil is fighting the dengue fever for 20 years now. More than a million people get the disease each year. Every year the public policy is the same: send agents to enter the houses and search for still water. When the same measure fails for 20 years, shouldn't they be thinking of an alternative?
Brazilian here. Our country is broken, unemployment has never been greater and we have a corrupt government that steals all taxes we pay. Hospitals of Rio de Janeiro and other cities are closed for lack of gloves and masks for the doctors. The situation is really bad here. Our country is great and our people work harder, if the government stop stealing we would not have those problems. The largest company in the country lost R$ 161 billions because of government Dilma Rousseff, government has disapproval of more than 80% of the population and won the election inventing a war between the rich and the poor. I do not know what will happen to children who are with dengue or zika because we dont have hospitals running. The people who were working combating mosquitoes in homes are on strike because they did not received their salaries. Worst of all is that the media does not want to show what is happening here. Excuse my bad english.
Are there other examples of nations declaring a sudden state of emergency over infectious diseases that pop up like this? There's obviously Ebola, SARS, and MERS but those were all highly infectious and had effects that were nowhere near as subtle as birth and developmental complications (which isn't saying much considering how long tobacco and alcohol's effects were missed/ignored). The CDC, WHO, and many other organizations do a great job of watching out for public health and are shining examples of what societies can achieve, up there with our space programs, but how many such incidents are happening in poorer parts of the world without such infrastructuree? How many are a hop, skip, and an airline ticket away from jumping to the developed world?<p><i>》 Until a few years ago, human infections with the virus were almost unheard of. Then, for reasons scientists can't explain but think may have to do with the complicated effects of climate change, it began to pop up in far-flung parts of the world.</i><p>Ugh, what? This offhand cmoment seems like nonsense meant to make the article more interesting and relevant. I have no doubt that, through some complicated and convoluted path, climate change can tip the scales jn favor of some virus or even an infectious variant, but this is too interesting and sensationalist a statement to leave unqualified.
This isn't the first dangerous disease spread by mosquitos, and may not be the last. Not to mention how incredibly annoying they are in general.<p>I've been to Brazil a number of times, and the thing I could never understand is why, in a tropical country knee-deep in hungry disease causing mosquitos, is there not a single screen on any of the windows there? Big mistake, they're not expensive. They are cheaper and safer than rubbing chemicals into your skin every day.<p>Here we have screens even in the desert where there are few mosquitos, they still keep out flies and moths, etc.
I'm yet to see good major news about Brazil this year. So far it's been microcephaly, the economy flirting with depression, corruption scandals and a political crisis. I wonder how are we going to cope with hosting the olympics amid all that
This is worrisome living a stone throw away from South America.
Last year was the summer of Chikungunya for us. It would only be a matter of time before this disease moves further north to us.
Tit-for-tat?<p><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27844-modified-mosquitoes-begin-blitz-on-dengue-in-brazilian-city/" rel="nofollow">https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27844-modified-mosqui...</a><p>We release GM mosquitoes that sabotage development of mosquito newborn, and they transmit virus which sabotages ours?
"may be the cause"<p>"may want to hold off"<p>"may have to do with the complicated effects ..."<p>They need some definitive answers.<p>The incidence of microcephaly is 1.02 per 10,000 births in the UK 2002 for microcephaly (University of Ulster, 2003).
[ source : <a href="http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/m/microcephaly/prevalence.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/m/microcephaly/prevalence.htm</a> ]<p>Birth rate in Brazil is 14.5 per 1000 births.(<a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2054rank.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...</a>)<p>Population of Brazil is 190,000,000.
They're claiming 2400 cases in this emergency.<p>Do the math. (as child threader indicates, it is high)<p>Finding Zika virus a small number of cases is not a clear answer.