The positive side of cold weather
Are there any positive things about cold weather ? Well ... yes . Here is one ; it kills off the bugs . And sometimes bugs can be downright dangerous . For example :
LINK
http://sc.news.yahoo.com/debilitating-virus-infects-island-paradise-123000106.html
Debilitating Virus Infects Island Paradise
By Dina Fine Maron | Scientific American Thu, Dec 26, 2013
Given a choice between dengue fever or another mosquito-borne disease called chikungunya fever , choose dengue every time. Neither has an available vaccine or treatment, but chikungunya (pronounced chik-un-GUHN-ya) is far more severe it literally means that which bends up because patients are often stooped over from debilitating joint pain .
If youre a resident of the Caribbean island of St. Martin (or lucky enough to be traveling there for the holidays) you are now at risk of both. The island, roughly the size of Manhattan and located some 300 kilometers east of Puerto Rico, has the first confirmed outbreak of chikungunya in the Western Hemisphere.
As of late last week there were 26 laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease on the island, with over 100 total cases suspected . Chikungunya has been found in both the French and Dutch parts of the island. It has also spread to the nearby island of Martinque , which has two laboratory-confirmed cases. And representatives of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that the virus could spread to other Caribbean islands and the surrounding mainland areas in the coming months or years. The outbreak in such a prime spot for tourism also heightens the risk of a future outbreak in the United States.
Disease experts are not sure how the virus got to St. Martin. The patients in St. Martin had not recently left the island, so presumably the virus was locally acquired. The top theory is that a traveler contracted the disease in another region of the world and was then bitten by a local mosquito in St. Martin that went on to infect other people. Another, less likely option is that an infected mosquito traveled to St. Martin, perhaps as a stowaway on a ship or plane. We know the area has the right mosquitoes to potentially transmit chikungunya, so you could question, why not before now or why not a year from now, says Erin Staples, an arboviral diseases expert at the CDC. This just happened to be the right combination of factors, such as ongoing transmission in other areas and an unlucky bite.
All it takes to spread chikungunya is for a female mosquito to feed twice, first engorging herself on an infected persons blood and then later biting someone else. But unlike dengue, which is already common in the region and is transmitted via the same Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, locals do not have any immune protection for chikungunya since its new to the areameaning it could spread quickly.
Based on the geographic creep of the disease, the CDC and the Pan American Health Organization have expected the virus to crop up in the Americas for the past several years. In 2011 they issued guidelines for how to respond to chikungunya in the region.
And with some 9 million U.S. residents traveling to the Caribbean each year, the CDC says that chikungunya could occur more frequently in the U.S. in the future. But its not a sure thing. Despite 109 laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease in the United States between 1995 and 2009all imported cases from travelers and most of them occurring in recent yearsnone sparked an outbreak of the disease at home. The U.S. does host mosquitoes that can spread the disease (and has recently seen an uptick in dengue), but much of the country is too cold for mosquitoes to have much activity right now.
The disease has been a problem in Africa and southern Asia for decades. Fatalities are rare but its symptoms include high fever and severe joint pain. And although the symptoms usually clear up in about a week, they can cause long-term joint pain in some people. The word chikungunya, for suffering that makes infected people double over, comes from the Makonde language of southeast Africa.
Usually symptoms of chikungunya begin within two weeks of being bitten by an infected mosquito. Once a mosquito dines on infected blood, the virus needs to incubate for about 10 days inside the insects body before it can spread the disease to another human with its bite.
Since no vaccines or therapies (except pain killers) exist for patients with chikungunya, public health experts instead look to limit mosquito populations in places close to humans. (The strategy is imperfect at bestmosquito control efforts in the Americas have not been very successful, as dengue continues to ravage many areas.) Mosquito nets, a common tool to help prevent malaria, are less useful against chikungunya-carrying mosquitoes, as these insects are aggressive daytime biters. Bed nets are not completely useless, though. One way to help combat the spread of the disease would be for infected patients to convalesce under nets during the day to avoid being bitten, says Staples. The CDC has also issued a travel health notice advising travelers to St. Martin to use insect repellant and wear long sleeves and pants.
Making matters worse, it is possible for a person to acquire both dengue and chikungunya at the same time. Although there are documented cases of individuals with both, Staples says it remains unclear whether the same mosquito bite caused both or those individuals acquired separate mosquito bites. The good news is that scientists believe that once a person is exposed to chikungunya, the bite provides natural lifelong immunity against reinfection.
Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.
Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
2014 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
Tags
Who is online
101 visitors
Crossing St Martin off the travel list. Martinque as well.
Guess I'll be going back to Aloha land.
At my age dengue fever or chikungunya fever would probably kill the crap out of me. Yeah, lets go to Hawaii.
My expectation [my guess really] is that the strong offshore breezes in the Aloha state prevent mosquito infestations .
Yikes; that doesn't sound like fun!
Manu is braver than I am. While I was in college, I studied French so I could go to Africa with the Peace Corps. If you could speak French and English, you can get around in Africa fairly well. What an adventure that would have been, right? I met many Peace Corps participants who had returned from Africa. They were outrageously sick from a variety of different diseases. I decided not to go. No, really - they were freakin' sick with fungus in their lungs, viruses, and all manner of nasty stuff.
Good link . Apparently even though neither disease is likely to kill you they both make you wish you were dead while infected and they leave you with residual nerve damage ...
Apparently the desert regions are a lot healthier in terms of infectious diseases . But in the middle eastern deserts you can have problems from other humans ...
But Hawaii is being overrun with mongoose and wild boar. True story.
I understand that Texas also has quite a lot of wild boar . Them things is nasty ! But if you can hunt , you can easily live off them . I think Neale has a recipe for cooking them ...
Wild boar are becoming a real serious problem in a lot of states Petey. Mongoose, not so much.
Good point . They are even found in FLA :
The wild pig (Sus scrofa), also called the wild hog, wild boar or feral pig, is not a Florida native and may have been introduced by Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto as early as 1539.
They occur in all of Florida's 67 counties within a wide variety of habitats, but prefer oak-cabbage palm hammocks, freshwater marshes and sloughs and pine flatwoods. Wild pigs can reach weights of more than 150 pounds and be 5-6 feet long. They usually travel in small family groups or alone.
If I'm not mistaken those are the smaller variety . Naturally the Texas variety are a lot bigger !
As far as mongooses [mongeese ?] go I've only read about Asian ones ...
She just likes looking at her man while he is climbing palm trees naked :
BTW , is it true that Texas has bigger ones ? [boars]
I've stayed in the northern part of the US for those reasons. To me, it's similar to the refrigerator idea - 40 degrees isn't going to kill the bugs, but it will slow them down, and the colder temps even more. There's quite a high percentage of skin cancer and MS here, but some researchers say those are more genetics related. The exceptionally high rate of TB is thought to be brought in by foreign travelers and international migration, as I've read. Despite those, I still think colder climates are generally safer.
Well , it depends on which conditions . Some things are endemic to cold climates ... eg. pneumonia . But that is not inevitable ...
Oh, I was looking that up, Petey. Sounds like drier conditions (warm or cold?) are best to mitigate pneumonia. They stated the most prolific environment for it is warm & damp [perfect conditions for bacteria/fungus growth and certain viruses].
I know the title of that article isn't your point [they made a case more for 'cause']. We were more talking about conditions that aid survival and spread of some of that nasty stuff. I just brought that in for their 'conditions' statement.
Thanks for the link Chloe .
I was just reading about this recently . Flu is much more prevalent in cold weather ... even though your link implied otherwise .
I remember the Habu and Mongoose fights in Okinawa. The Mongoose always won.
Flu shots are generally a waste ... They may even be dangerous , just my opinion ... And I have never gotten one that I recall .
I guess I can stand a little cold weather to kill those bugs. That's about the only thing I don't like about spring, summer and fall. If I could I'd set my alarm clock for 8am March 1, 2014.
If it works for you , do it . But you are advocating what others should do . Since you are doing that you need to be informed of the error of your ways . So here is the error : Flu shots expose you to last year's flu . This year's flu is never the same as last year's flu [or any prior year for that matter ] .
8 am ... sounds like you've got this timed to precision !
Interesting, Petey, on your source(s) stating otherwise.
__
I've never had a flu shot or do witchcraft, either!
I agree, Petey, people should do what they are comfortable with. If they do the opposite, they'll waste a lot of emotional energy worrying about it.
Well ... to be fair , I didn't actually list sources ... did I ?
Here's another pest killing benefit to cold weather :
The record cold U.S. temperatures may have a silver lining - killing off some tree-eating forest pests that have spread dangerously as the general climate warms up, scientists said.
The deep freeze that shattered decades-old records this week - causing fatalities and snarling air, road and rail traffic - could adversely affect pests such as the emerald ash bore, which is responsible for killing more than 10 million trees, said Robert Venette, a research biologist with the U.S. Forest Service in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Eighty percent of emerald ash bore may have been destroyed where temperatures fell to -22 to -26 Fahrenheit (-30 to 32 Celsius), he said.
"That's when they really start to freeze and die. And we've been seeing those kind of temperatures here in Minnesota, particularly in the Twin Cities and points north," Venette explained.
The emerald ash bore are spread over more than 20 states, from Colorado to Georgia, and have extended into Canada, he said, adding they are now in a larval state under the bark of infected trees.
Also affected will be gypsy moths, which have recently moved into northern Minnesota and eat the leaves of more than 300 species of trees, shrubs and plants, he said. The moths die at -17F (-27C).
Those #^&* bugs are tough !
I expect just examining at all the past husbands of Cher would get similar results .
Letsee : Sonny ... already dead . Any others ?
Don't listen to this nutcase !
A jalapenoin your ass has got to be a lot more hurtful ...
My suggestion instead of the jalapeno trick :
BF, agreed. Here's a video that proves the credibility of the "Nocebo Effect."
Very interesting & informative . Thanks Chloe .
Drama llama ... LMAO !
Thank you! lol, I thought that was funny, too!