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Florida Issues Statewide Alert

30/06/2023
110 7 minutes read
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The Florida Department of Health issued a statewide mosquito-borne illness alert after four people in Sarasota contracted malaria.

All four individuals reportedly recovered after falling ill to malaria.

“Residents throughout the state should 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 Florida Department of Health stated.

From the Florida Department of Health:

The Department continues to work closely with local partners and county mosquito control. Aerial and ground mosquito spraying continues to be conducted in these areas to mitigate the risk of further transmission.

In Florida, Malaria is transmitted through infected Anopheles mosquitoes. The cause of malaria in these cases has been identified as the Plasmodium vivax species. Effective treatment is readily available through hospitals and other health care providers. Individuals in this area with symptoms of fever, chills, sweats, nausea/vomiting, and headache should seek immediate medical attention.

One case of “locally-acquired” malaria was also identified in Texas.

Miami Herald reports:

Malaria can only be spread by mosquitoes, not other people. Generally when new cases are reported in the U.S., they are in people who have traveled outside the country. But these five cases were locally transmitted.

To limit the risk of transmission, the health departments in Sarasota and Manatee counties will continue working with local partners and county mosquito control to conduct aerial and ground spraying.

The CDC issued an alert after one malaria case also was confirmed in Cameron County, Texas, which includes the city of Brownsville near the Mexican border. There is no evidence to suggest the cases in the two states are related, the CDC said.

The U.S. has not seen locally transmitted malaria cases since an outbreak in Palm Beach County in 2003, when there were eight cases.

But we have to ask a legitimate question.

Was Bill Gates the source of these malaria cases?

Malaria cases were found in Florida and Texas.

Bill Gates-funded Oxitec released genetically-modified mosquitoes in Florida and Texas.

Even Snopes admits it.

From Snopes:

Bill Gates is not himself releasing mosquitoes into the wild. However, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did award grants that funded biotech company Oxitec’s work to develop genetically modified mosquitoes that may help reduce the spread of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases in certain locations around the world. In April 2021, it was announced that Oxitec would release approximately 150,000 mosquitoes across six locations in Florida. However, the company told Snopes that this particular project was not funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

A multi-year research project to genetically modify Aedes aegypti, a mosquito species that is known to carry and transmit infectious diseases to humans, was slated to move from the lab to the fields of Texas and Florida in mid-2021. Under the project, thousands of A. aegypti were altered to make their reproduction more difficult, thus slowing and eventually preventing the spread of mosquito-borne illnesses like Zika, and dengue fever. But when the internet caught wind that Bill Gates may have been behind the project, posts circulated on social media that questioned the real motivation behind the project.

Let’s dig a little deeper into this malaria craze.

Labiotech has more on the Bill Gates-funded Oxitec biotech company.

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:

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.

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

And it’s another extremely dangerous shot.

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.


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30/06/2023
110 7 minutes read

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