"And the death rate can be high — "up to 70 percent,""
"In parts of northeast Thailand, up to half of the population has been infected at some point"
That would mean that, out of every 100 people born, 75 would get infected, of which 50 die, leaving 25 who never got infected and 25 who survived.
That would mean this disease kills half of those born. Yet, this disease, which has visible symptoms, isn't well known? => I expect that "up to 70 percent" is based on an exceptional and small sample (for comparison: under five child mortality rate is 1:6 in Angola, more like 1:10 in south east Asia)
My reading of that was that "up to 70% mortality rate" refers to specific groups. That is, mortality might be 20-30% for adults, but 70% for infants, or something to that effect.
The death rate is likely to be far lower in places where the disease is endemic. People will evolve partial immunity, and the pathogen may evolve to be less deadly since it's rarely advantageous to kill the host.
With permafrost melting out bacteria and virii that has not been seen in the biosphere for 100k years + I wonder what new adventures on the plague front lies in wait for us.
Without treatment it can kill within 48 hours. It sounds like a weapon, easy to store and lethal except that basic hygiene can prevent needed the ABs in the first place.
The bacteria is Burkholderia pseudomallei. A tropical disease with 165k cases each year with 90k deaths. A decently high mortality rate - but this is in 3rd world tropics without proper testing/antibiotic sensitivities. When properly treated the mortality is 1/10.
But I've been drinking pretty heavily tonight, so who knows. Maybe you have it right now.
Thats what I'm thinking too. And the infection rate of 165K isn't too low either for something that will 1/10. I know there are lots of thing killing a lot more people but this one doesn't look trivial specially if somehow the infection rate spreads.
"A cohort (roughly 480 soldiers) selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten. Each group drew lots (sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing."
"The procedure was a pragmatic attempt to balance the need to punish serious offences with the realities of managing a large group of offenders."
As the article says, its on par with rabies, which isn't nothing. It happens to occur mostly in poor areas, without adequate health resources, so we don't hear as much about it. The limited antibiotics it responds to is the most concerning part.
Poor access to care/vaccines means that a lot of people still die from rabies, but it is the access that is the problem, not the effectiveness of the treatment.
I agree that the part about surviving for "decades" is clickbait-y, as they only showed it would last 16 years, but if it can:
* Survive for 16 years in distilled water,
* Infect humans and non-human animals,
* Feed off of amoebas,
* And potentially survive in the wild in the US,
as the article claims, then that is one badass microbe. It's the combination of all these things that makes this bug a bit frightening, even if the overall risk is fairly low. Even the combination of pathogenicity in mammals with being able to feed off of (I'm assuming they mean 'infect' when they say that) amoebas is rather unusual, AFAIK, although I'm not a biologist.
> But I've been drinking pretty heavily tonight, so who knows.
Which given WHO data, means that you should be much more fearful of "Cirrhosis due to alcohol use" than anything to do with the disease in question.
I think we can best summarize it by saying... it sucks if you get it, and if you're traveling to an area where it's know to be more common you should be mindful of it... but you shouldn't lose sleep over it otherwise. Or as you said... clickbait title.
Looks like its not a first choice for weaponizing either (thought it's not a completely unsuitable one either).
"In parts of northeast Thailand, up to half of the population has been infected at some point"
That would mean that, out of every 100 people born, 75 would get infected, of which 50 die, leaving 25 who never got infected and 25 who survived.
That would mean this disease kills half of those born. Yet, this disease, which has visible symptoms, isn't well known? => I expect that "up to 70 percent" is based on an exceptional and small sample (for comparison: under five child mortality rate is 1:6 in Angola, more like 1:10 in south east Asia)