[ExI] china malaria

[BillK]

On Thu, 1 Jul 2021 at 19:55, William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> I can't figure out how China eliminated malaria.  Spraying, diagnosing, treating, etc. were done.
> But presumably malaria-carrying mosquitoes are still there.  You can't get rid of mosquitoes all over China, can you?
>
> No mention of preventative drugs. I am stumped.
>
> bill w
> _______________________________________________


Whenever you find yourself typing "I can't figure out how.......",
then you should think "maybe I should ask Google"?

<https://www.who.int/news/item/30-06-2021-from-30-million-cases-to-zero-china-is-certified-malaria-free-by-who>
Quote:
Beginning in the 1950s, health authorities in China worked to locate
and stop the spread of malaria by providing preventive antimalarial
medicines for people at risk of the disease as well as treatment for
those who had fallen ill. The country also made a major effort to
reduce mosquito breeding grounds and stepped up the use of insecticide
spraying in homes in some areas.

In 1967, the Chinese Government launched the “523 Project” – a
nation-wide research programme aimed at finding new treatments for
malaria. This effort, involving more than 500 scientists from 60
institutions, led to the discovery in the 1970s of artemisinin – the
core compound of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), the
most effective antimalarial drugs available today.

In the 1980s, China was one of the first countries in the world to
extensively test the use of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) for the
prevention of malaria, well before nets were recommended by WHO for
malaria control. By 1988, more than 2.4 million nets had been
distributed nation-wide. The use of such nets led to substantial
reductions in malaria incidence in the areas where they were deployed.
etc......
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BillK