Before its civil war, the African nation of Ivory Coast had a lot of tourism — it was once known as the “Paris of Africa.” But even after its civil war ended, tourism didn’t return to previous levels. Soon, however, it may eradicate malaria from many areas, making it a more attractive tourist destination. (People don’t directly catch malaria from each other, but “People with untreated or inadequately treated malaria may spread infection to a mosquito that bites them. These infected mosquitoes can in turn spread the disease by biting and infecting healthy people.“).
Malaria eradication is taking off:
On Monday, the Ivory Coast became the first country to officially deploy the R21 vaccine, a new and powerful weapon against malaria.
This is not the first malaria vaccine. Its predecessor, known as RTS,S or Mosquirix, is already available in many African countries. However, R21 is superior in two important ways. First, it is more potent, showing greater and longer-lasting protection in trials. Second, at under four dollars a dose, it is far cheaper. According to an analysis from 1 Day Sooner, a health policy non-profit, R21 can save a healthy year of life for 39 US dollars, compared to 129 dollars for the RTS,S vaccine. That puts R21 on par with bed nets, the most cost-effective intervention.
With international support, R21 should reach over six million children by 2025, and this is likely just the beginning. The manufacturer, Serum Institute of India, has already produced 25 million doses and plans to produce up to 100 million annually in anticipation of large-scale roll-outs.
It’s best to think of R21 as an addition to an already powerful malaria-fighting toolkit. By spraying insecticides and draining swamps, many countries have eliminated malaria entirely. And in regions that remain malarial, the disease has been steadily tamed (an upsurge during the Covid pandemic aside) thanks to public health programs and the development of antimalarial medicines. However, despite this progress, malaria still kills around half a million people each year and imposes a severe economic cost on already poor countries. R21 and other malaria vaccines will likely play a large role in reducing that burden.
Even after its civil war ended, Ivory Coast was in a state of turmoil, and on the brink of civil war for years. As Al Jazeera reported, “The ‘Paris of Africa’ – as the Ivory Coast is known – became fraught with mass murder, rape and pillage as the standoff continued and the country veered ever so close to a fully-fledged second civil war.”
Having more effective mosquito repellents would be helpful to protect against many diseases like malaria. “Scientists in Israel have developed a new kind of ‘chemical camouflage’ that could more effectively keep pesky mosquito bites at bay,” reports Euro News. But it will take years before it is available in the U.S., thanks to America’s incredibly slow Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration keeps the most effective sunscreens off the U.S. market. It may do the same with this mosquito repellent, just as the Obama administration impeded anti-mosquito remedies during an outbreak of the mosquito-transmitted disease Zika, which results in birth defects. As Washington University in St. Louis notes, “Due to Zika virus, more than 1,600 babies were born in Brazil with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, from September 2015 through April 2016.” The Obama administration banned a life-saving pesticide, preventing it from being used to kill mosquitos carrying this awful disease, even though, as the New York Post noted at the time, Zika “infected nearly 300 pregnant women in the United States, putting their babies at risk for a devastating birth defect. . . . hundreds of babies are at risk of a horrifying brain defect called microcephaly. Infants who don’t perish outright need extensive care, which can cost up to $10 million.”
The FDA blocks new innovations that will protect your skin. Insider reports that the “US has awful sunscreen compared to Asia and Europe. Strict, decades-old FDA rules are to blame.” “European and Asian sunscreens boast stronger and smoother formulas than sunscreens found in the US. That’s because the FDA is slower to approve new UV filters compared to other countries.”
