It was an ordinary day. Reading a bit more about the Brood X cicadas. It was back on April 14 that I wrote a story about the impending arrival of the Brood X cicadas. The last time the Brood X cicadas arrived was in 2004.
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| The Brood X Cicada, a friendly bugger. |
Seems to be freaking out many, many people, but perhaps they don't realize that they are perfectly harmless to humans, except for the constant annoying whine they make if they are nearby. What should spook most people is the pending arrival of droves of mosquitoes that tend to arrive every year. Seems they have no benefit to speak of, thus they are a constant threat. I can still remember their whine as they buzz around my hearing aides that sit firmly in my ears. Their buzz seems to be amplified to the point that they are annoying. But, what annoys me more is the itchy welts they raise each and every time they land on me and plant their tongue, or whatever it is, into me. Mosquitoes are more than just a nuisance, since they are usually at the top of the list of the deadliest animals on the planet. They are carriers for a variety of diseases such as dengue, encephalitis, malaria and yellow fever. The latest report I could locate for how deadly they are was in 2019 when over 400,000 people died from malaria, two-thirds of whom were young children. Now, I realize that is not as deadly as the COVID-19 virus, but certainly tops anything a cicada could do to you. So, just how do we defeat the ghastly mosquito? You can sleep with a bed net over you or you can request the release of genetically modified bugs that will eliminate them. But, I should tell you that mosquitos don't cause malaria, but it is a parasite that is in their saliva called Plasmodium. Now if you are bitten by a mosquito that has Plasmodium in its saliva, you will more than likely get malaria. The parasite invades the liver, multiplies, and goes back into the blood allowing another mosquito to slurp up your blood and continue the deadly cycle. For COVID-19 we now have a vaccine, and it appears that a new malaria vaccine may be in the near-distant future. The vaccine has been tried and is supposedly 77% effective in trials, making it the first candidate to cross a critical threshold set by the World Health Organization.  |
| The mosquito, the carrier of deadly diseases. |
More testing and data are needed before the vaccine can be given to more people. Hopefully, testing of the malaria vaccine will be as productive as the vaccine for COVID-19 has been. In Africa, malaria is the fourth leading cause of death in children under the age of 5. If the new vaccine works as good as they hope, we'll be one step closer to making mosquitoes more of a nuisance than a threat. Isn't science marvelous? So, for now, enjoy the noisy Brood X cicadas knowing that they are only a noisy nuisance and not a deadly nuisance as other insects can be. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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