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This is great news to help us in eradicating one of the worse scourges that plague our species and in my mind this is yet another great example as to why basic research is so important. It also underscores the opening of a Pandora's Box like effect of haphazardly encroaching into environments where humans are not indigenous. Our ancestors did not know of these problems, but we do today and we should be more mindful on how we utilize our diminishing natural resources. We can’t halt growth and development, but surely we can approach such development with a more cautious eye and view to the future and not the bottom line of next quarter.
Knowing the genetic source of malaria now should indeed help us identify better preventive treatments, and hopefully, as the article mentions, an elusive vaccine. Kudos to the all of the researchers involved over the years in finally locking this source down.
What research have been made on the human pygme population in central africa? They have lived in the rain forest for hundreds of thousands of years and should have been exposed to malaria longer than any other human population. What resistence to malaria is demonstrated by the central african pygmes?
This material does not just help in understanding the history of malaria but also provides more scientific explanation about some health issues region Central African, West African and South-East Asian regions. Infectious diseases emanating from these regions have often been contemporaneously been attribute to the ‘barbarism and ignorance’ of the people inhabiting there. Great article!
Perhaps, P. reichenowi (the chimp plasmodium) could serve as a proper basis for creating an attenuated live vaccine. Has there ever been a documented case of illness from that bug in immunocompetent humans?
This development also shows, as previously noted, the great value of basic research in molecular genetics, proteonomics, and the sequencing of the Plasmodium sp. genome, which was recently accomplished. What's most fascinating in this research is the paleogenetic result that Plasmodium arose in humans as an epizoönosis only about 10,000 years ago. That may go a long way to explaining why humans are so severely affected by malaria, whilst chimps are relatively less bothered by it (seeing how very ancient their exposure to it has been). By contrast, other agents, like syphilis, which causes life-threatening illness only in a minority of patients, and the common cold, which very rarely causes any real problem directly, must be very ancient in the human experience. The human genome is positively littered with the aftereffects of previous viral epidemics (e.g., many of the oncogenes related to breast cancer are ultimately of viral origin). It would be very interesting if we could quantify the relative proportion of all human disease which is directly related to the insertion of genetic information into our genes by infectious agents and how much of this is relatedto viruses as opposed, respecitvely, to all other parasties, like malaria.
"Today, it kills over a million people a year, most of them young children."
And you can thank Rachel Carson and her faithful followers for those countless millions who have died since DDT use was blocked by mindless enviro-fantasies. The biggest silence to come out of Silent Spring was the silence of those who died unnecessarily because of Rachel Carson and her romantic drivel masquerading as science.
Excellent article, but I don't get Major Payne's post. We humans evolved in the same area where chimps now live. We are just as indigenous as they are. Some of us may have moved away a bit, but I know of no evidence that humans have not lived in central Africa during most of our existence as a distinct species.
Also, the malaria infecting humans does give a survival advantage to the chimps.
Human were born in safe and clean conditions. But there are many sickness recently. Dirtiness is the source of sickness and death.
nothingbutnets.net This organization provides malaria nets to those living in malarious regions, and claims that every net saves a life. They are $10 (US dollars) roughly. Send them a donation if you're interested.
Roll on the malaria vaccine. I have just spent a small fortune on very expensive malaria tablets for my family's visit to Vietnam.
Surely what started it and where it is derived from should not be the issue but rather how malaria is wide-spread and how best to contain the causative agents ought to be our concern. Or is one missing the point?
I fully support MarkB comment. I have been working in PTP's (Persistent Toxic Pollutants) for a few decades and I feel this is one of the biggest mistakes the Stockholm Convention ever did.
The balance between the potential damage to some birds ability to reproduce and the 3000 daily child lives that die from malaria was never put into question.
By the way, why these children never get the attention of the media? instead of this A1H1 paranoia?
1. I hope that this article (research) is NOT used by ignorant people to go on a chimp killing spree.
2. We (homo-sapiens) are all brothers; it seems that we can learn a lot from studying our fist cousins (great apes).
3. From Cincinatus "Also, the malaria infecting humans does give a survival advantage to the chimps." If I remember correctly a virus may have been the weapon we used against the Neanderthals long ago.
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