Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Justa Werkenstiff]

Zeev: How did you come up with 30%? That is not my understanding of the mortality rate for malaria where 90% are reportedly in Africa:

"Malaria is the most common and deadly parasitic disease in the world. Malaria is an ancient disease. However, environmental disturbance, malnutrition and the failure of drugs once used to control the disease have conspired to make malaria as serious a problem now as it was during the first half of the twentieth century. In any given year, six to nine percent of the global population [300-500 million cases annually] will suffer a case of malaria. Most who fall ill survive after an illness of 10-20 days but 1-3% of those who contact P. falciparum do not and are killed.
Africa is terribly affected, and accounts for over 90% of reported cases of malaria. About 10% of hospital admissions are for malaria, as are 20-30% of doctors' visits. As bad as that is, some experts foresee as much as a 20% annual increase in Africa's rate of malaria-related illness and death. No Western disease is nearly so prevalent or growing at anything like that rate."

http://www.malaria.org/

"The World Health Organization estimates that yearly 300-500 million cases of malaria occur and more than 1 million people die of malaria. About 1,200 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the United States each year. Most cases in the United States are in immigrants and travelers returning from malaria-risk areas, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent."

It seems WHO shows a 7% mortaility rate for SARs to date (514/7183):

http://www.who.int/csr/sarscountry/2003_05_09/en/

These stats are from Nov.1, 2002 to date. Moreover, the disease is spreading.


You said SARs is a non event. Techically speaking, for the US it is a non-event for now in that there are no US deaths. But for Asia, SARs is an event for sure. And the issue, then, is not whether it is a US non-event but rather what will be the impact of the event in Asia on the US?