I was surprised by the number of cases in Europe since I thought dengue was entirely tropical - the explanation is not entirely comforting:
"Dengue is not endemic in the WHO European Region and cases are mainly travel-related; however, since 2010, there have been reports of autochthonous cases in a number of countries in the region, including Croatia, France, Israel, Italy, Portugal and Spain."
The virus is being a little antisemitic in these trying times.
We had a few cases here last month.
Enough of a concern to prompt a warning by the public health ministry.
Dr. Fauci is currently sitting through two days of questioning by a House committee. I'm sure public health in the United States is going to be just fine.
I was never sure how to pronounce dengue. If Wiktionary is correct, in Britain it's dengi and in the US it's dengay.
Britons put three syllables into jaguar so I would just ignore them.
YMMV, but one of the local news outlets used to refer to Deng Xiaoping of China as "Chairman Dung."
That's a lot closer to the Mandarin pronunciation though.
We just got a new mattress and now my back hurts like 30% less.
Reports from people I knew in the Peace Corps who had dengue are that you wouldn't confuse it with regular muscle ache. From what I was told, the English-language name of "breakbone fever" isn't hyperbole in terms of the pain level.
I actually know someone who recently got it while vacationing in Jamaica. It sounds excruciating.
You need to read the fine print if you stay somewhere that's "all inclusive".
I know someone who has had dengue fever multiple times (three if IRC?). She said it was much, much more painful after the first time. I think she also said that you can only get it four times, though, so hopefully she's close to done.
I was wondering how the virus could count, but it turns out that there are four strains, each giving immunity only to itself.
You really really don't want to get two different strains because that puts you at risk for hemorrhagic fever, like bleeding from various holes bad. At my old job we did research working with one strain and if you had a history of infection with a different strain it was recommended to avoid working with the other.
My brother the biologist recalls learning that the more times you're infected / strains you're infected with, the more at risk you are of dying at each infection, due to some sort of immune interaction effects.
Yes, that's a well-known characteristic of dengue. Getting one of the other strains after having had a different one can lead to a much more severe illness.
Someone should be doing a vaccination campaign then.
It might be, if you count your body as a Pokemon gym.
Can you get vaccinated against catching pokemon?
No, but you had feed them Ivermectin.
that's good. I don't want them getting pokeworms.
Suspected to be due to antibody dependent enhancement*, if you have antibodies to one strain they're incompletely effective against another which can enhance infectivity. I don't know if the vaccines propose to cover all four strains at once to prevent this? Wouldn't want a vaccine against just one that increases your risk for severe disease from another.
*This is one of the things the COVID antivaxxers brought out, which was a possibility until the data showed absolutely no evidence for it. It kind of sucks that their bullshit confuses people** about actual science.
**I read this Scocca story about his health struggles and felt bad because he was prescribed hydroxchloroquine but didn't use it because he suspected his doctor was a COVID crank, but it was actually a legitimate treatment for a possible autoimmune condition and it sounds like Tom didn't realize that.
Autoimmune stuff is hard to treat. That's why House always had to remind people it wasn't lupus.
Looks like the vaccine does indeed protect against all four strains.
Sanofi, and its trial participants.
One of the lesser madnesses of the Roc is the coexistence of ubiquitous anti-mosquito-breeding-habitat campaigns with horrendous cambering and guttering.
28.last. that's a very good essay. I'd been thinking about sending the link to Heebie. I encourage people to click through.
Dengue, Dengue, Dengue, great album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0MPZgfu93c&ab_channel=2666-TheArtOfListening