It Might Not Be Ebola, but Malaria is Nothing to Celebrate
After a Massachusetts General Hospital patient tested negative for Ebola, but positive for malaria this week, even the patient reportedly breathed a sigh of relief.
When asked during a press conference on Wednesday how the patient felt about his medical results, Dr. David Hooper, chief of the MGH Infection Control Unit, said, “You could look at it as a strange ‘Boy, I’m glad I have malaria’ scenario.’’
Wait, what? Back-up a second.
As of Nov. 20, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded a total of 17,145 cases of Ebola and 6,070 deaths in West Africa this year.
There was an estimated 207 million cases of malaria in 2012 and 627,000 deaths in 2012, according to the World Health Organization’s 2013 world report. About 3.4 billion people on the planet are at risk for malaria, reports WHO.
For every one death from ebola in 2014, 103 people died of malaria in 2012.
MGH’s patient might not be suffering from ebola, but his suspected prognosis went from grim to only slightly less grim.
Yeah, Boston, it’s great that there isn’t someone in the city with ebola. But that patient has malaria, so maybe you shouldn’t celebrate just yet.
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