Drama! Intrigue! A Mystery? No, Malaria’s Story

[groovedaddy]

Human history marches to the beat of what? A big brass band? A choir singing hymns? The lub-dub of the human heart? Sonia Shah’s tour-de-force history of malaria will convince you that the real soundtrack to our collective fate is none of these: it is the syncopated whine-slap, whine-slap of man and mosquito duking it out over the eons.

Mosquitoes transmit dozens of infections, but none is as complicated or as sinister as malaria. Its very name (from the Italian “bad air”) conjures up the wispy miasmas of a B horror movie. And indeed, this is a disease written in unnerving shades of gray. People can live with it for decades or die from it overnight. Immunity is patchy and incomplete. Drugs work, except when they don’t. Vaccine makers create ever more promising failures. Over the eons malaria has arguably helped kill more people than any other force on earth.

And here is how stories about it usually begin: “Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease caused by a eukaryotic protist of the genus Plasmodium ... ” (this particular yawn-maker courtesy of Wikipedia). So Ms. Shah, a Boston-based journalist, has performed a real public service in telling the story of malaria with all the drama, intrigue and human interest left intact.

The little blobs of matter responsible for malaria are so devious they could give lessons to the C.I.A. Plasmodia change shape like a magician’s scarves as they move from a mosquito’s intestine to a mammal’s bloodstream and then back again. Each of the species that cause human disease has its own “shtick,” Ms. Shah’s word, to keep it alive and causing trouble. The most vicious, falciparum, explodes millions of red blood cells at a shot and can kill overnight. Vivax, less dramatic but more persistent, hides in the liver and can keep a person weak and miserable for years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/health/27zuger.html?th&emc=th
More - Author interviewed on Fresh Air:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128512803

[Warpy]

1. It's also moving north

along with dengue fever. If the wacky climate and disappearing glaciers don't convince the stupidly smug about our changing climate, maybe a good go of malaria or break-bone fever will.

I know the sickest my mother ever said she got was with a "mild" case of malaria in Florida back in her youth.

The bug itself is diabolical in the way HIV is, resisting all attempts to prevent or control it. Control of the vector, the mosquito, is also fruitless, although mosquito net projects around the world have helped people lucky enough to get them survive in good health. Mosquitoes thrive and spread anywhere there is standing water, even a forgotten glass or gourd, and those are the conditions we also thrive in.

I suppose if the desert gets wetter, I'll just lay in a big supply of quinine-laced club soda flavor for my homemade soda and hope for the best. The best medical science out there is pretty much stumped.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. True science can be scarier than science fiction...

[Hamlette]

3. sounds good. Along the lines of The Ghost Map (cholera) and The Band Played On (AIDS)

both are excellent reads. Oh, and The Hot Zone about ebola.