Disease Found in United States For First Time In 20 Years

Reports broke Monday that malaria, a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite, was found in the United States for the first time in 20 years.

U.S. health officials reported five malaria cases, four in Florida and one in Texas.

Florida Department of Health issues statewide advisory on mosquito-borne illnesses after four people contract malaria.

Another "locally acquired" case has also been reported in Texas. https://t.co/7k58bIwVkF

— ABC News (@ABC) June 27, 2023

ABC News reports:

Five people caught malaria locally in the U.S. for the first time since 2003, according to health officials.

Four people in Sarasota County, Florida, and one person in Cameron County, Texas, reported cases of the mosquito-borne illness, state officials said. Cameron County is the southernmost county in Texas, about 1,300 miles away from Sarasota, Florida.

All four Florida patients “have been treated and have recovered,” according to a statewide mosquito-borne illness advisory from the Florida Department of Health released Monday. Residents have been advised to “take precautions by applying bug spray, avoiding areas with high mosquito populations, and wearing long pants and shirts when possible — especially during sunrise and sunset when mosquitos are most active,” the health department said.

The last locally acquired Texas cases occurred in 1994 and 2003 in Palm Beach, Florida, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The fearmongering push for ‘widespread malaria transmission’ has already began.

I expect the media to amplify the scare campaign in the coming weeks.

From Vox:

Experts say the three cases shouldn’t warrant panic about widespread malaria transmission in the US. But it does warrant asking some questions, and being wary of the threat of more local transmission. Mosquitoes can infect multiple people before a full-on outbreak is even identified — so more cases could be out there.

Even if this turns out not to be widespread, it’s a good reminder: Malaria could make a comeback in the US, and we — and our public health infrastructure — ought to be prepared. This is especially true as a changing climate and shifting weather patterns increasingly drive mosquito migration into new places worldwide, allowing malaria to settle in where it hasn’t before.

These cases are not the worst form of the disease — but they’re not benign

Malaria comes in a variety of flavors, all in the genus Plasmodium, and all parasites that infect and kill red blood cells. The anemia that results is the major cause of most of the bodily havoc that follows.

The species that has been identified in both Florida and Texas is P. vivax. It’s not the worst of the malaria species: P. falciparum, the most severe form of malaria, is 10 times more deadly than vivax, according to a study of Americans diagnosed between 1985 and 2011. But vivax is no cakewalk. People with this infection can develop life-threatening brain swelling, lung congestion, and kidney failure.

The infection causes fevers that come and go, along with a wide range of symptoms that can be mistaken for flu, a stomach bug, or liver disease.

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Recall that Bill Gates released genetically-modified mosquitoes in Florida and California.

From Labiotech:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with Oxitec for the development of a new strain of genetically-modified mosquitoes that can help reduce the spread of malaria in America.

In its latest effort to free the world of malaria, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has joined forces with Oxitec, a British company that genetically engineers insects to fight the spread of diseases such as Zika, dengue or chikungunya, as well as to protect crops from plagues.

Oxitec has developed a self-limiting technology that selects against female mosquitoes — the ones who bite and spread disease. When male mosquitoes carrying Oxitec’s self-limiting gene are released, they mate with wild females. The females of their offspring will die before adulthood, while the surviving males can mate again with wild females. The self-limiting gene can survive for up to ten generations, after which no genetically-modified mosquitoes remain.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave the green light for Bill Gates and Oxitec to release their GMO mosquitoes in the United States.

First Coast News presented this report in 2022:

In fact, Bill Gates is releasing GMO mosquitoes in multiple countries.

The world’s largest mosquito factory, located in Medellin, Colombia, produces 30 million GMO mosquitoes per week.

WATCH:

https://twitter.com/flugkind/status/1671018834562633728

Bill Gates wrote a piece on Medellin’s mosquito factory in 2022:

Inside a two-story brick building in Medellín, Colombia, scientists work long hours in muggy labs breeding millions and millions of mosquitoes. They tend to the insects’ every need as they grow from larvae to pupae to adults, keeping the temperature just right and feeding them generous helpings of fishmeal, sugar, and, of course, blood.

Then, they release them across the country to breed with wild mosquitoes that can carry dengue and other viruses threatening to sicken and kill the population of Colombia.

This might sound the beginnings of a Hollywood writer’s horror film plot.

But it’s not.

This factory is real.

And the mosquitoes being released don’t terrorize the local population. Far from it. They’re actually helping to save and improve millions of lives.

Did Bill Gates’s GMO mosquitoes cause malaria in the United States?

It’s a fair question.

Malaria has been found for the first time in 20 years on U.S. soil, a lot of people are speculating this could be due to Bill Gates’s funded GMO mosquito programs. #Malaria #billgates https://t.co/xPsnWJTUkr

— Prince Carlton 🇺🇸 (@_PrinceCarlton_) June 27, 2023

Cause, meet effect. pic.twitter.com/3cYZaZo3sS

— IT Guy (@ITGuy1959) June 27, 2023

Could it be all those mosquitoes Florida released? pic.twitter.com/UJM8udWr3m

— Informed NJ Nurses (@InformedNJNurse) June 26, 2023

If you’re guessing they have a malaria vaccine in development, you’d be correct.

And it’s another extremely dangerous shot.

Would that be Bill Gates genetically modified mosquitoes? They have a very dangerous vaccine for malaria! Of course they do! pic.twitter.com/40cBm2NqUa

— Kate Shemirani (@KateShemirani) June 15, 2023

Do not panic.. they got us covered!! https://t.co/HB1HO9Diyp pic.twitter.com/87MCLEUMXU

— Mel K Show (@MelKShow) June 27, 2023

From the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:

Bill Gates announced today that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will provide $168.7 million to PATH for its Malaria Vaccine Initiative to develop vaccines for malaria – a disease that kills thousands of African children every day.

The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) is working with GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals to develop a first-generation vaccine candidate, known as RTS,S, which could become the first-ever approved malaria vaccine. With the new grant announced today, MVI will support the development of next-generation vaccines that could provide even greater and longer-lasting protection.

“I’m very hopeful that the malaria vaccine currently in advanced testing will be proven effective, but that will just be the first step,” said Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation. “Now it’s time to develop a new generation of vaccines that are even more effective, and could someday help eradicate malaria altogether.”

Gates announced the new funding at the UN Millennium Development Goals Malaria Summit, a meeting of heads of state, CEOs, UN officials, and other leaders. At the event, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership launched the Global Malaria Action Plan, a comprehensive global strategy to fight malaria. The Gates Foundation grant and other commitments announced today will help address key priorities in the Action Plan.

The RTS,S malaria vaccine is currently being tested in Africa.

The WHO announced its recommendation of the shot:

The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending widespread use of the RTS,S/AS01 (RTS,S) malaria vaccine among children in sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions with moderate to high P. falciparum malaria transmission. The recommendation is based on results from an ongoing pilot programme in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi that has reached more than 900 000 children since 2019.

“This is a historic moment. The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Using this vaccine on top of existing tools to prevent malaria could save tens of thousands of young lives each year.”

Malaria remains a primary cause of childhood illness and death in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 260 000 African children under the age of five die from malaria annually.

In recent years, WHO and its partners have been reporting a stagnation in progress against the deadly disease.

“For centuries, malaria has stalked sub-Saharan Africa, causing immense personal suffering,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “We have long hoped for an effective malaria vaccine and now for the first time ever, we have such a vaccine recommended for widespread use. Today’s recommendation offers a glimmer of hope for the continent which shoulders the heaviest burden of the disease and we expect many more African children to be protected from malaria and grow into healthy adults.”

WHO recommendation for the RTS,S malaria vaccine

Based on the advice of two WHO global advisory bodies, one for immunization and the other for malaria, the Organization recommends that:

WHO recommends that in the context of comprehensive malaria control the RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine be used for the prevention of P. falciparum malaria in children living in regions with moderate to high transmission as defined by WHO. RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine should be provided in a schedule of 4 doses in children from 5 months of age for the reduction of malaria disease and burden.

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided catalytic funding for late-stage development of RTS,S between 2001 and 2015,” the WHO stated.

WATCH:

However, a team of researchers disputed the WHO’s findings in a paper published in in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The researchers concluded that the findings in the malaria vaccine implementation programme (MVIP) “do not rule out the possibility of increased mortality among vaccinated girls compared with vaccinated boys, as observed in the phase 3 studies.”

“Three significant safety signals were identified, related to meningitis, cerebral malaria, and female-specific all-cause mortality,” the researchers noted.

The researchers concluded that the “claimed impact of the MVIP on mortality is not based on enough scientific evidence.”

The vaccine’s impact on severe malaria was estimated to be around 30%.

The paper’s final conclusions stated:

We have made several recommendations for the way forward (panel). Populations affected by malaria and their policy makers have waited for a vaccine for about half a century. The enthusiasm greeting the WHO recommendation of RTS,S is understandable. Unfortu-nately, the available data suggest that this vaccine, like some other non-live vaccines,16, 17 might increase all-cause mortality in girls to the extent that its deployment could lead to a net increase in deaths of girls among the recipients.