For the next step in our project towards understanding malaria, we decided to interview Dr. Haskins. Dr. Haskins is a professor at Rockhurst who teaches classes such as Invertebrate Zoology and Parasitology, in which she talks about malaria in both classes. We were able to ask her questions that expanded on the background information we found, and what research and prevention methods are being used now.
We started off the interview by asking Dr. Haskins to more or less explain what the general public does or should know about malaria, if she thinks American physicians know enough about malaria, and what preventative measures are currently being used in the fight against malaria. Dr. Haskins believes that American physicians don't get enough training in the field of parasitology in general but if she had to guess which parasite they knew the most about it would be malaria. She thinks malaria is the best known parasite in the general public also. She thinks malaria is the parasite most easily diagnosed because of its prominent fever/chill cycle. The first step is for doctors to rule out the flu and then with the 24, 48, or 72 hour chill/fever cycle. She thinks that doctors knowing how to diagnose it is not enough though. Dr. Haskins thinks that the general public does not know enough about malaria. She thinks it is something the public is scared of but they do not understand the world-wide impact of the disease. Most Americans think malaria is a disease confined to third world countries in Central America and Africa. What Dr. Haskins thinks people need to realize is that the disease has world wide repercussions.
When asked to elaborate on repercussions, her main example was products being produced in countries affected by malaria. In one year, a company can lose up to 5,000 days of work because of people out sick. When people are out sick, productivity decreases drastically. When productivity decreases, it is more expensive to make products and then more expensive to sell them. Although Dr. Haskins still thinks the number one reason to fight malaria is for the well-being of those living in affected areas, she sees this example as a way to make the disease hit a little bit closer to home for Americans.
When asked about prevention methods, Dr. Haskins responded with multiple medications such as methylquin, doxycyclin, chloroquine, and quinine. Methylquin and doxycyclin are medications being used today as anti-malaria medications. Dr. Haskins went on to explain that quinine was the first medication used but the parasite soon became resistant. Physicians then moved on to chloroquine until that too started to fail due to malaria resistance. She now thinks that more anti-malarial drugs are on the market because not only does it decrease the chance of all malaria becoming resistant to all the different types of drugs but now there is a money making market for malaria medication. There are side effects to the medications though which turn some people away from them. Especially with methylquin, a major side effect is very horrible, very vivid nightmares. Another problem is that doctors do not feel the need to tell their patients that this is a very common side effect. If a patient is unaware that his or her dreams may become very gruesome and vivid, and they are in a different country, it might scare them enough to stop taking the medication. She also explained other forms of prevention that did not include medication. This were some behavioral things such as wearing certain colors that mosquitos are not attracted to, not being outside during certain hours of the day, wearing long pants and long sleeves, sleeping in a netted area, and always wearing repellant. As far as repellants went, she said DEET products were the best. She also said DDT works really well but it is illegal in America because it killed a big part of our eagle population, but we still support the use of it in other countries, and possibly even continue to sell it to other countries.
We then started to ask Dr. Haskins about malaria in America and how long it has affected the American population and how we got rid of it here. She told us that when we started to settle in America, malaria was a big problem. But once we got a little more civilized and started to take care of things like standing water and started to spray towns, we were able to break the mosquitos cycle. She remembers not too long ago, in the early 80s, a truck coming through a town and fogging up communities spraying for mosquitos. When asked if she thought there were any side effects to that treatment, she seemed pretty certain there was but doesn't know if anyone has made a connection to them yet. We then started to talk about all the regulations and laws for medications these days and she thinks that going around spraying towns would be met with a lot of resistant today. She thinks it would depend on the community though. If the community is well educated and an active community, she thinks it would be met with resistance. But if the community was a poor community just working to put food on the table, she thinks that they would not have the time or energy to fight against it.
Dr. Haskins then went on to explain how even in third world countries, their government is still bright enough to know the dangers and risks of malaria and are very proactive in trying to get rid of it. They simply do not have the funding though. So that is where world health organizations and foundations such as the Bill Gates Foundation come into play with supporting funding for getting malaria medication and modes of prevention into these communities. The Bill Gates Foundation has pour millions of dollars into malaria research and prevention and once stated he wished to eradicate malaria by the year 2015 (or something very close). Obviously, that date is not going to be reached but there are huge strides being made. Dr. Haskins was not aware of the malaria research being performed by computer-gridding but she was very excited to hear that some 1.3 million people were on the grid and she said it sounds promising.
It was a great honor to be able to speak with Dr. Haskins on the topic of malaria. She was very knowledgeable of the topic and was very willing to share it with us. She is very passionate not only about malaria but all parasites in general and we suggest, if you get the chance, to sit down and talk to her about them.
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