Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

23 years ago we went to Hangzhou and our question was, "where are the birds?" And it was pretty much the same everywhere in China. Don't remember thinking about mosquitos, but maybe it wasn't the right time of year.

Dear Brad--The mosquitos do exist. They occasionally fight their way into your bedroom, and then you're asking "Why are there so many mosquitos in China?"

DDT or Malaria?

http://www.gene.ch/gentech/2000/Dec/msg00029.html

Well... one of Mao's brilliant schemes, IIRC, was to encourage peasants to kill sparrows who were allegedly eating China's crops by frightening them into flying off whenever they landed, so that they'd eventually collapse from exhaustian, or something. Then, a bunch of insects that the birds had formerly been eating grew to massive populations and ate all of China's crops.

Ah well.

That was 40 years ago, though, so I'm not sure how relevant it is to contemporary Chinese bird or insect populations.

I lived in Singapore for a while and always wondered the same thing ... how can you plunk a metropolis down in the rainforest yet have no creepy crawlies ... other than the occasional friendly Geko or python siting ...
we hardly saw anything.

But I do remember the regular early morning sounds of sprayers fogging the city ... creepy ...

Modern mosquito management techniques rely much more on elimination of habitat than on chemical sprays. As that Ehrlich guy across the bay constantly harps, destroy the habitat and destroy the wildlife. Tropical forest insects live in tropical forests. Replace the forests with urban pavement and the insects will be displaced. Sprays are relatively ineffective at killing the mosquitos compared to "draining the swamps" (or old tires).

Fogging is unlikely to be DDT; more likely malathion. A little pesticide exposure is a small price to pay to reduce risk of tropical diseases. No one has ever died from accidental exposure to DDT. Malaria kills millions. Dengue kills fewer, but the dying process is much more unpleasant.

MALARIA- Through its Roll Back Malaria campaign, the WHO aims to halve deaths from the disease — which kills a million people a year — by 2010. But it acknowledges that the burden of malaria is increasing. In severe malaria (caused by Plasmodium falciparum), clinical findings (confusion, coma, neurologic focal signs, severe anemia, respiratory difficulties) are more striking and may increase the suspicion index for malaria. Drug resistance tests are performed to assess the susceptibility to antimalarial compounds of parasites collected from a specific patient.

DENGUE fever is a severe, flu-like illness that affects infants, young children and adults. The clinical features of dengue fever vary. Older children and adults may have the classical incapacitating disease with abrupt onset and high fever, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pains, and rash. Dengue haemorrhagic fever is a potentially deadly complication that is characterized by high fever, haemorrhagic phenomena--often with enlargement of the liver--and in severe cases, circulatory failure. The illness commonly begins with a sudden rise in temperature accompanied by facial flush and other non-specific constitutional symptoms of dengue fever. The fever usually continues for two to seven days and can be as high as 40-41°C, possibly with febrile convulsions and haemorrhagic phenomena.

In moderate DHF cases, all signs and symptoms abate after the fever subsides. In severe cases, the patient's condition may suddenly deteriorate after a few days of fever; the temperature drops, followed by signs of circulatory failure, and the patient may rapidly go into a critical state of shock and die within 12-24 hours. There is no specific treatment for dengue fever. However, careful clinical management by experienced physicians and nurses frequently saves the lives of DHF patients. With appropriate intensive supportive therapy, mortality may be reduced to less than 1%.

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Commune periculum concordiam parit - Common danger brings forth harmony

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