I am a doctor who has treated patients with myiasis and would love to talk if that helps. As a physician in India, Myiasis as a surgical case is not uncommon, whereas it is unheard of in developed countries (I now know this might be because of the Panama worm-border in North America; previously, I just assumed it was better standards of living). You are not overindexing the ‘yuck’ factor of it, in fact, dial it up. I can tell a patient has worms in their wounds from over a mile away (not literally); the stench adds to social stigma for the patient and makes it harder to seek treatment. I remember being the only person in a group of five assigned a patient stepping forward to dress a wound (I won’t go into details of how that’s done here) because I was the only person not retching uncontrollably. That patient was just an orphan kid who fell, scraped his knee pretty badly a couple of days ago, and never paid attention to the flies because flies are everywhere where he lives. The lethal cases do not differ much from what you would see in a zombie/horror movie. It’s just wild to think that in this day and age, there are still people (and animals) being eaten by worms alive.
I wonder if a great additional question here is “How many humans would it help and how much?” Is it the same worm? What is the current estimate of the global disease burden, DALYs? Prima facie, it would seem that it is a slam dunk—kill two birds with a stone— health + animal welfare with a single intervention, but it is not discussed as such yet, which makes me think that either the two don’t overlap or just hasn’t been looked into it like that. If we assume human suffering gets more policy traction/funding than wild animal suffering, it seems beneficial to explore this.
She's done it
She’s done it ’s Quick takes
Thanks for your work.
The post mentions the work done in Goa, India, I would like to highlight the cost-effectiveness of the injectable rabies vaccine reported in the paper on the intervention done. “Elimination of human rabies in Goa”. (I had read this paper once and thought the numbers were impressive. feel free to criticise it)
”The estimated mean cost per death averted and cost per DALY averted from 2013 to 2019 were 14,866 USD and 526 USD, respectively. During this period, the program was estimated to result in 2,249 DALYS averted and 80 deaths averted compared to no intervention. Over a 10-year projection (2013–2023), the intervention was estimated to prevent 121 human rabies deaths and 3427 DALYS at a mean cost of 567 USD per DALY averted.”
Administering injectable vaccines does pose logistical issues; They report mean vaccination coverage in the 2016 campaign as 71.8% in all sighted dogs and 60.1% in roaming dogs. In 2017, intensive methods were applied state-wide, achieving an estimated coverage of 71.7% in all dogs sighted and 53.1% in the roaming population. Would improving operational efficiency in covering the free-roaming population of dogs with the traditional rabies vaccine be considered a good recommendation?
AFAIK @Joel Becker’s introduction to EA was to find a good use for his earnings from his YouTube channel Messiseconds.
Excellent post. I love to see legible, reader-friendly summaries of high-level work on the forum. About time everyone updated their baseline knowledge on UVC.
Also, huge +1 to reaching out to Max expressing interest if anyone wants to work on this and feel that they bring something valuable to the table (even if something might not be available right away). I did this about six months ago and actually ended up contributing to a project. And what a great work experience it was overall!
Pan-Canadian action plan on antimicrobial resistance
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/drugs-health-products/pan-canadian-action-plan-antimicrobial-resistance.html
This might be already on your radar but WHO just released its AMR research agenda. This might update the neglectedness of this issue.
How long do you suggest one should spend filling out the interest form?
I did end up in Mexico City. I plan to continue the job search from here while exploring independent contracting for some supplemental income and diverse project experience.
- If anyone is looking for expertise in biosecurity/global health to help with ongoing projects, please reach out and delegate to me! I am new here, so I haven’t gathered any “EA karma” from well-written posts yet. I would love to change that!
LinkedIn
- I am open to ideas in up-skilling for the most impactful work I can do as a physician-scientist. Open to ideas for skills to master and funds to apply for the same.
- Also, EAs in the Americas, take a work-cation in CDMX! The weather is excellent, and the city is energetic and green. So far, a good group of EAs have been here after the fellowship ended. I would love to keep it up!
About “PPE procurement activities.”
I was on the board of directors for the NY chapter of AAEM ( American Academy of Emergency Medicine), as a student representative. During the first wave of COVID in NYC, we were tasked by the leadership with a PPE procurement drive; this was later delegated to medical students around the city who were eager to help with the COVID effort and who had a lot of free time due to suspended classes. The drive was quite successful at a time when manual resources to track down suppliers, warehouse stocks, and sifting through the black market sources was difficult for hospital administrators.
Having seen this process up close, done by the volunteer time of medical students, the price tag of ~1M$ for this seems exceptionally ridiculous. The PPE procurement activities they proposed must have either been on an entirely different scale/direction or just over budgeted.
Keep-it-realists? (Sorry, for non serious comment)
Looking at the text’s tone, it seems like this is about community-building, residential fellowships. As opposed to research fellowships which are basically jobs. What other contexts is the word ‘fellowship’ used in ?
Qn: Where is the closest EA community base to the US? How accesible is the USA from it (US Consulate)?
Context: I am recently let go from my job while on a visa in the states. Which means I have to leave the US within the next 7 days. I would like to live somewhere close to the US where I can find community so that I don’t loose momentum to do the intense work that job search needs. I tend to be really affected by the energy of where I am; I work best in cities, I tend to sleep most on a countryside.
This might also be a good resource for people who are not able to enter the US for any reason whatsoever. I am assuming a longterm housing community in a nomad friendly place like CDMX would do wonders for people wishing to be within +/- 3 hours of timezone of their American colleagues.
I am quite new to EA and here are some of my novice thoughts reading this post:
I am non white and non male and usually have a very low threshold for when social gatherings make me feel aware of those two facts. EA community has hardly made me feel so.
I am neurodivergent as well, my partner for the last 2 years was too. I’d say I am more emotionally present than outright Aspergers. I have seen that my requests to consider emotions and rational explanations for them have been well appreciated and incorporated into actions by my partner. Our relationship gets stronger the more it is talked about. The phrasing of ‘shouldnt do Xyz cz it will alienate aspy EAs’ is very biased IMO. And counterproductive to the issue
As much as we hate it, EA has a status issue. EA forum is a place for elite (written) stuff. I have heard people say they hate posts talking about emotional stuff/experiences or anything that is not jargon or math heavy. I don’t know what to do about it, I am just saying OPs experience rings a bell.
I have been hit on at EAGs when not seeking that, it is as annoying as it ever is. I usually brush it off by rationalising that the person probably has a terrible social radar (aspy) and doesn’t know how to not act. Hence I don’t report it thinking ‘probably wasnt their intention’. I realise doing so never addresses the issue
As someone who has been broken up with before because someone acted on a joke told to them in a very serious 80k career call, cz they thought that was the right thing to do even if that broke them, I know that groups running EA cannot entirely control the actions of aspy members. But EAs do respond to well rounded discussions and numbers. We just need to open up dialogue about this.
I recently worked for an EA organization and went in expecting loving caring environment to solve the best problems. I left feeling burnt out, unheard and drowned in the religiousness of the cause. Might be an isolated singular experience but I was tired of feeling guilty for taking time off for myself. Even though doing that was highly encouraged explicitly. -How many new EAs have stopped doing things that they derived pleasure from after joining? Stopped having out with Non-EA friends because ‘they don’t get it’ or ‘its too much to explain’. How many miss both things? - good polling qns IMO. Go out and grab a boba tea with that one friend that chats a lot about Netflix. You will be fine. Better even.
(I have written this in bed without being mindful of using jargon to appeal to a certain group of people. I intended to do that.)
“UNICEF delivered over 43,000 doses of the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine by air to Bangui, Central African Republic, today, with more than 120,000 doses to follow in the next days. “
—Link
Pretty rookie numbers, need to scale. To be seen how this translates to actual distribution and acceptance. But sure did feel good to read the news, so thought I’d share! No takes yet, feel free to add.
Also, “Around 4.33 million doses of RTS,S have been delivered to 8 countries so far – Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, and Sierra Leone”.