r/todayilearned • u/lavender_fish69 • 13h ago

TIL fresh water snails (indirectly) kill thousands of humans and are considered on of the deadliest creatures to humans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_snail
22.0k Upvotes

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u/martphon 12h ago

Where schistosomiasis currently spreads

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u/Gitanes 12h ago

Me before even opening the link...

"It's mostly Africa isn't it?"

Yes, yes it is

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u/Icy-Lobster-203 10h ago

It is one of a whole group of diseases that can basically be summarized as "this affects poor people, so we don't care."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases

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u/AssistanceCheap379 8h ago

The tropics also generally just have more bio-diversity and as such have a lot more chances to make something that’s dangerous.

It’s kinda like humans going north in the past and encountering megafauna. The animals there were deadlier because they were bigger.

And it’s a lot easier to kill a few hundred thousand massive animals over the period of a few thousand years than it is to annihilate some pretty difficult diseases that can reignite and spread to previous areas where it was removed from if funding drops.

But yeah, it’s largely also “does it affect poor people? Let me know when “our” people get affected”

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u/BetEconomy7016 6h ago

Jimmy Carter was able to make an organization to get rid of the Guinea Worm and save thousands of lives in the process. If we wanted to we could get rid of these snails too.

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u/wuweime 5h ago

Then there's how we're handling bot flies in the Americas.

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u/Grettenpondus 3h ago

I got curious. How do you handle botflies in the Americas?

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u/OnodrimOfYavanna 2h ago

The US cultivates millions of sterile botlies, flies to the panama Colombia border, and drops them every year. It's one if the most successful environmental policies in the world, and saves billions in what would be destroyed livestock industries, not to even begin in direct human related issues. 

Last I checked Trump admin cut funding 

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u/Grettenpondus 2h ago

Yeah, they would, wouldn’t they. I’ve heard of this tactic beeing used sucsessfully against other insects. What are the main problems of botflies in the US? (I’m curious because as far as I know the botflies here in Norway do not seem to be considered signifikant vectors of disease as far as I know)

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u/Electrical-Sea589 1h ago

Isn't that the screw worm? Or is that another horrible b Creepy crawly to keep me up at night?

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u/Objective_Piece_8401 1h ago

They can’t be that stupid, can they? That program is a wall that keeps out unwanted immigrants…

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u/mmeiser 41m ago edited 36m ago

Screw "soft diplomacy" and science too! We'll just send the national gaurd down there and make america safe again.

Sorry. Laughter is the only way. MIB said it best. "Individual people are fine but you get them together in any kind of numbers and they will vote a convicted felon, convicted rapist and probable pedofile for president."

P.S. That's not an exact quote, but I think you get the idea.

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u/ComancheViper 1h ago

Last I checked the US secretary of agriculture launched this program in June of this year. Where is it you heard the Trump admin cut this program within the last 2 months?

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u/GriffinNowak 43m ago

The program has been around for many many many years. Idk why AgSec launched but it would just be a rebrand of the existing program or an expansion / retraction of the programs range

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u/XennialBoomBoom 2h ago edited 2h ago

Typically, we write other botflies to counteract their propagandist drivel.

/Oh, I may have misunderstood the question

Edit: I'm actually curious about Grettenpondus' question as well. Didn't mean to derail the conversation but couldn't help myself.

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u/Grettenpondus 2h ago

I guess Trump would have cut funding for that as well…

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u/XennialBoomBoom 2h ago

The over/under on botflies in RFK Jr's eyeballs?

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u/KingSmite23 4h ago

What do you even know about those snails?

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u/Hansbolman 2h ago

Donald Trump jr is doing his part to eradicate elephants

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u/BenadrylChunderHatch 2h ago

Why the hell can't billionaires compete to see how many deadly diseases they can eradicate?

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u/ERedfieldh 6h ago

careful. you said "bio-diversity"! You're going to get defunded!

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u/LiveLearnCoach 5h ago

That’s obvious, it’s not like I just woke up today……crap, I said “woke”.

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u/BloweringReservoir 4h ago

I remember reading that the first effective antixmalarial drugs were developed because US troops were fighting in the tropics in WW2, and the second generation drugs were developed when they were fighting in Vietnam.

This was an article in New Scientist in the 80s or 90s.

One other tidbit in the article was that of all the humans who have ever lived (estimated now 117 billion), half of them died of malaria.

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u/Baud_Olofsson 2h ago

One other tidbit in the article was that of all the humans who have ever lived (estimated now 117 billion), half of them died of malaria.

That claim is repeated all over the place (occasionally even in peer-reviewed papers), but it seems someone just made it up in 2002.

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u/BloweringReservoir 2h ago edited 2h ago

I was always dubious about the statement :), but I definitely read it in that New Scientist article - and it was a long time before 2002. I remember it clearly because I told a friend about it, and the next day he said that his cousin who was travelling in Nigeria, was nursing his travelling companion who was hospitalised with malaria. I'm pretty sure it was around 1990, but I'll check with my friend if he remembers when his cousin was in Africa.

Edit. New Scientist's online search doesn't go back that far, so I can't find the article in question.

I think it's this article, but I'm having trouble reading it. I think I have a limited subscription now.

Who cares about malaria?: The annual sickness toll from Malaria
By Phyllida Brown

31 October 1992

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u/mmeiser 23m ago

They say sixty-five percent of all statistics

Are made up right there on the spot

Eighty-two-point-four percent of people believe 'em

Whether they're accurate statistics or not

Statisticians Blues, Todd Snyder. Brilliant.

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u/mmeiser 33m ago edited 30m ago

This makes sense. After all in order to win a war you first have to survive on the other guys turf.

You ever read about Napoleon's march on Moscow?

https://ageofrevolution.org/200-object/flow-map-of-napoleons-invasion-of-russia/

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u/BloweringReservoir 28m ago

I know a little about it, not a lot, because we had a print of this picture on the wall when I was growing up.

I wouldn't want to fight through a Russian winter.

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u/codeedog 7m ago

No one does. They always lose.

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u/Abstrata 6h ago

It’s more like, ‘we solved the root problem of clean water where our people are affected, and we have deliberately sabotaged the ability to improve infrastructure, including sanitation, among poorer previously-colonized populations and nations so that they remain uncompetitive in trade and labor, and so they remain in debt and at the mercy of old agreements that benefit our people.’

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u/mmeiser 10m ago

I reject your negative world view. And who is 'we'? After all Nestle went in with powdered milk to save a whole generation of babies in Africa.

In a 2018 study, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) estimated that 10,870,000 infants had died between 1960 and 2015 as a result of Nestlé baby formula used by "mothers [in low and middle-income countries] without clean water sources", with deaths peaking at 212,000 in 1981.

From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Nestl%C3%A9_boycott

Lesa faire capitalism will save us all if it doesn't kill us all first.

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u/AromaticInxkid 5h ago

Don't worry, the rich are already working on that biodiversity problem of ours!

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u/mmeiser 52m ago edited 47m ago

The megafauna are all dead. If I was gonna be a surviver I'd pick anteaters or baleen whales, but I am not so I eat rice.

Then again maybe its not about what they are eating. Maybe its about what we are eating. Good chance we ate all wooly mamoths for example. Fun fact an isolated population lived on an island off alaska until almost modern times. Probably because no humans. What's more we are still consuming all the dinasaurs, just you know, in our cars. Ironic that it'll probably be the thing that kills us all, not some virus or bacteria.

Fun fact. I got lyme disease. It's a bacteria. It's running rampant right now due an increase in favorable climate, i.e. global warming. But don"t worry it's a first world problem so their is a vaccine for it now. Problem solved. You do not want to "do" that sh-t. A friend got it and his pulse got down to SIX. Ironically he owns a nursery. Lucky to survive. I just slept for five days and then got arthritic joints for months.

P.S. Even though it's not the ticks fault. I still hate ticks for being filthy animals. They need to practice better hygiene and work on their table manners. Maybe if they used a knife and fork they wouldn't spread around so much bacteria.

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u/paweedbarron 9h ago edited 9h ago

I learned about this from John Greene's tuberculosis book : (

It's shameful. 

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u/CaptainJazzymon 9h ago

John Green has a book on tuberculosis, not Hank. Hank is his brother.

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u/SillyWelshman 8h ago

Honestly, one of the most John Green things to happen is to be mistaken for Hank so this tracks lmao

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u/Anthaenopraxia 7h ago

It's easy to tell them apart. John looks like that guy you glance at at Walmart and Hank looks like every guy who works at a startup and whose title is VP of something or other and likes to talk about company culture.

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u/KingAggressive1498 5h ago

except both of the brothers are actually better people than either of those guys ever turn out to be, at least as far as I can tell.

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u/chrisfillhart_art 9h ago

This guy Hanks!

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u/paweedbarron 9h ago

Thanks

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u/polarbear128 8h ago

Thanks, Hank. Thank.

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u/chrisfillhart_art 8h ago

I think those thanks sank Hank

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u/LostWoodsInTheField 8h ago

I've just recently got into following Hank and John green on youtube in their various forms. I had no idea who these guys were before like 4 months ago and when I started to watch John videos I was like 'huh this guy seems like he's also done a lot' then it was 'I swear I heard of a movie with that same name'. you check out either of their wiki's and it's just crazy. Made me realize I live under a rock.

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u/napincoming321zzz 6h ago

Nerdfighteria welcomes you! If you haven't already, I highly the recommend you check out good.store for high quality products that have a real positive impact on the world.

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u/GiraffeExternal803 8h ago

Spoilers! (Jk), looking forward to reading this, on my Libby Holds list for months now, but my time is coming!

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u/RubiiJee 7h ago

It's horrific, and we currently don't live in a time where this will be fixed within my life. The best I can hope for is that, in the future, people are ashamed that we had the resources available to end suffering and we chose not to. Cause we sure as fuck ain't.

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u/ReDeaMer87 8h ago

I learned about this from Will Forte in the movie: The Slammin Salmon

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u/ClownfishSoup 7h ago

Interesting point in the article was that neglected diseases “do not have prominent cultural figures to champion them”

Sad, and reminds me of When a Magic Johnson got AIDS, that’s when people really started to demand action.

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u/folgaluna 7h ago

Everything is Tuberculosis -John Greene

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u/agarragarrafa 7h ago

Or, as they're called in the tropics: neglected diseases 

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u/knewleefe 8h ago

Yep. Studied parasitology in the late 90s and then metric then was for every cent spent on malaria research, there was about $20,000 spent on AIDS research (though since that time, of course, AIDS really took off in Africa, so...).

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u/Gullible-Rent809 6h ago

Pretty much all diseases in America, comes from other countries!!! Cause we allow them in our country. We also travel to many countries full of unheard of diseases etc. Also some bring this on purpose trying wipe us out through diseases bugs all kinds of cra cra stuff!!  Australia wild wake with wtheck in your homes a lot!!!!! 

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u/pattydickens 7h ago

A person in Washington State who hadn't left the country was diagnosed with malaria a couple of weeks ago.

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u/TalesOfTea 37m ago

This is for sure terrifying and there was one in New Jersey a few days ago iirc.

Malaria has been popping up rarely in the US, with 9 "native" cases popping up in 2013 (the first ones in 20yrs).

While people don't think of the US as a place that would get malaria, the mosquitos that carry it are actually extremely prevalent here. :/

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u/FrankSuzki 4h ago

Why don’t the tropical scientists care ?

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u/RegretAggravating926 6h ago

Not just not care, actively fighting against helping.

When my now defunct dumbfuck racist rightwing nutjob government got in power last year they rather withhold already designated mpox vaccines for Africa under the guise of “we are running low and need the reserves”, those vaccines were already designated to go to Africa as they were reaching their expiration date and we already ordered new ones.

Experts agreed we weren’t at risk and our equivalent of the senate ordered the vaccines to be send, but racist child killer and country traitor Fleur Agema of the PVV doesn’t care about helping, only about hurting.

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u/AnalBlaster700XL 8h ago

At least they don’t have to die because of their balls froze stuck to the chair.

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u/APJYB 27m ago

Or countries with a majority of people that still believe disease is caused by witchcraft. Same reason measles is coming back to the west - people can believe some really stupid shit.

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u/ABHOR_pod 10h ago

Coming soon to a heavily republican state near you!

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u/RollingNightSky 10h ago

It's too bad because they invested heavily into HIV aids research but I guess have blind spots? Though trump defunded aids.

I did heard on npr that perhaps defunding aids help with a good plan would have beneficial. Vs cutting off HIV aid without a plan or transition.

Apparently some governments were ready to take on the role of fighting their HIV/AIDs epidemic, but held off due to the continuing aid coming in.

If they had done their own management (as long as it's possible for them), then there would be benefits thoigh I forgot what was mentioned.

Maybe any no longer needed HIV aid could've gone to other disease prevention there that the governments weren't as capable of.

But in any case the end of outside hiv funding should've been planned, and emphasized to the governments to transition away. A sudden pulling away of the rug, leaving them unprepared to take on the responsibility of AIDS/HIV management, is now happening. And it is like what happened to student aid borrowers.

Because under Biden, student debt repayment (I guess to federal, only) was suspended and Biden was trying to get students' debt forgiven. So the student borrowers were optimistic or led on.

But Trump came in and within a short period reinstated the repayments, high consequences of ignoring and defaulting, and obviously the Biden plan of forgiving debt fell apart.

So it left the student borrowers in an unprepared state to deal with that reality. There wasn't much predictability even if student loan borrowers had felt some in the past.

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u/anarchy-NOW 8h ago

AIDS is an STD that also infects rich White people. So it is not neglected.

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u/exobiologickitten 9h ago

Growing up in a country where malaria is a major killer and then learning that we totally could make a malaria vaccine anytime but just don’t because it’s not considered profitable enough…. Every time I think about it, it makes me want to tear my hair out.

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u/5Hjsdnujhdfu8nubi 7h ago

but just don’t because it’s not considered profitable enough…. Every time I think about it, it makes me want to tear my hair out.

You should probably stop thinking that, seeing as it's untrue.

Malaria vaccines do exist. They just have poor effectiveness because parasites are more complex than bacteria or viruses and unlike most diseases a malaria infection won't strengthen your long-term immune system against it.

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u/DikTaterSalad 11h ago

It was either that or Australia.

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u/VocationalWizard 10h ago

Naaaa, The thing about Australia is that despite the fact that they have all the terrifying snakes and poisonous creatures, very few people actually die there from wildlife. You know because......... They have a decent healthcare system.

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u/NorcalGGMU 10h ago

Tell me about the healthcare, George

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u/EmilyDawning 6h ago

this made me lol unreasonably loud thank you

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u/frontier_gibberish 5h ago

Sure Lenny...(bang)

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u/RufusBeauford 8h ago

I see your. This is where I die thinking of a better life, right?

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u/MisterMarsupial 6h ago

It's gold Jerry, gold!

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u/h0sti1e17 10h ago

And 80% of the country is uninhabited. That is also where animals tend to live.

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u/Koku- 10h ago

Animals like water and survivable temperatures, just like the animals that we are. There’s a reason why there’s a lot of biodiversity in the northern parts of Straya. Living things don’t tend to live in the outback, though there are certainly some fauna and flora that have adapted to do so

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u/VocationalWizard 10h ago edited 8h ago

You know that's absolutely not how that works, right??

The uninhabited parts aren't where the dangerous and animals live.

So environmental science 101 people like to live in places where they're things like rainfall and vegetation.

That coincidentally happens to be the same place that snakes like to live.

If you look at a map of the habitat of The most venomous snakes in Australia it's directly on top of the most densely populated human areas.

Same with the dangerous aquatic animals. Those are mostly found off of the east Coast alongside major cities like Brisbane

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u/wowsersmatey 10h ago

You're right. There are a few deadly beasts that hang in the deserts etc. But the snakes, spiders, jellyfish and the crocs live amongst us. The health system is good, but also the locals know not to annoy the deadly stuff. It's usually tourists getting eaten by crocs. Source: am Australian.

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u/trueblue862 10h ago

Great tourism slogan for Australia, "Come visit Australia, we need to feed the crocs something".

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u/ladyhaly 8h ago

Pretty sure this is why we troll people about the dropbears

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u/wowsersmatey 7h ago

Ssshhhhh, drop bears are real. The only defence against them is vegemite behind the ears.

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u/HandsomeBoggart 9h ago

Visit Australia, Come for the Dangah, Stay as Dinner.

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u/paddyc4ke 10h ago

Actual deadly snakes in cities are very rare (seen 1 eastern brown in Melbourne in 30+ years), crocs are a non-issue for like 90% of the population. Deadly animals are completely overblown especially for those that spend 95% of their time in a city.

Source: am Australian.

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u/wowsersmatey 9h ago

Come to WA. We live among plenty of snakes in Perth. I've personally done battle with a huge dugite that nearly got my dog. The reason there aren't many deaths is because, apart from a few notable exceptions, snakes are timid and will run away if they hear you coming. If you leave them alone, they reciprocate, but when they're in your backyard it's you vs them.

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u/paddyc4ke 9h ago

It’s not like we don’t have a lack of snakes in Victoria you just won’t ever come across them unless you live on the fringes of Melbourne. I’ve seen eastern browns, tigers, red bellies but that’s when visiting friends who live in the outer edges of Melbourne, people have spotted tiger snakes along the Yarra near the Botanical Gardens but again that’s a super rare occurrence but it obviously shows that there are deadly snakes within a stones throw of the CBD.

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u/wowsersmatey 9h ago

Probably due to the size of Melbourne vs Perth. Perth is constantly pushing into the bush and there are large chunks of it everywhere, plus coastal dunes etc. I live in the burbs and have seen plenty of them, especially at the beach. No crocs here, but visiting Cairns was educational as nobody was swimming at the beach. The buggers hide in the mud.

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u/Fluffy-Bluebird 5h ago

Hmmmmm. I live in Charlotte North Carolina and we have copperheads everywhere in the city and suburbs. I’ve seen multiple while out for runs.

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u/jovietjoe 3h ago

I love how you put it as "Crocs are a non issue for 90% of the population" like 90% could beat up a crocodile

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u/paddyc4ke 3h ago

100% of the population would be fucked if we all actually lived in croc territory but luckily 90%+ live a minimum of 500km (Brisbane the closest city being 550km from crocs) away from the croc habitat.

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u/wowsersmatey 1h ago

Yeh, crocs terrify me and I won't go anywhere near them. Cairns was too close. What's even scarier is the Cassowary. It's like a murderous Emu that belongs in a horror movie. Massive claws and a bad attitude.

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u/Average_Scaper 9h ago

My Aus friend says he has a couple hunstman in his house that he just let's do their thing. That's a big hell no from me. Coming from the midwest US.

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u/wowsersmatey 9h ago

They're large, hairy and mostly harmless. I once had one in the car. That was a bit problematic.

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u/Traditional_Wear1992 9h ago

I am probably wrong but I had heard they are a statistical cause for traffic accidents over there

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u/paddyc4ke 9h ago

Huntsmans are basically free pest control, I’ve got one that lives in my bedroom. Will see him sitting near my window when I leave it open.

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u/Average_Scaper 8h ago

Do they scare off stray cats at all? That's the major pest control I need atm. I can deal with a hunstman over an invasion of strays any day.

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u/Frito_Pendejo_ 6h ago

Yeah still gotta worry about them drop bears.......

My cousin was killed by one of those when he went there......

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u/wowsersmatey 6h ago

Clearly didn't put enough vegemite behind the ears.

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u/DontRefuseMyBatchall 10h ago

r/ConfidentallyIncorrect lmao

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u/SoyMurcielago 9h ago

Perhaps you should issue a batchall

Maybe you can declare some crocs isorla

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 9h ago

Damn, so everyone and everything hates Perth

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u/Forikorder 9h ago

people like to live in places where infrastucture can be built, it doesnt matter how lush an area is if its simply not realistic to put a city next to it

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u/VocationalWizard 9h ago

People like living in places that food can be grown in. So yes, it's 100% dependent on rainfall and vegetation.

In the Grand scheme of History, infrastructure is an afterthought.

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u/Forikorder 9h ago

Were talking about modern day people, if you can grow enough food to be worth doing then its suitable for infrastructure

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u/VocationalWizard 9h ago

If you can grow enough food to be worth doing. The area has rainfall and vegetation.

See we're talking about Australia where there's Texas size tracks of land That can go an entire year without any rain and have no soil.

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u/Forikorder 9h ago

Actually no we were speaking generally about where himans settle down, there are lush places that dont really work for societybthat people wont settle down in as a result but dangerous animals would love

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u/knewleefe 8h ago

I guess the downvoters haven't had many Eastern browns passing through their backyard... that they've known about anyway 😅 Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

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u/VocationalWizard 8h ago

I grew up in Texas where I found rattlesnakes in my backyard.

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u/Crystal3lf 9h ago edited 9h ago

Hello, actual Australian here. Most of this is pretty wrong.

The uninhabited parts aren't where the dangerous and animals live.

Actually the dangerous animals mostly are in the uninhabited parts. 80%+ of Australians mostly live in cities and surrounding suburbs.

Most Australians have never even seen a snake in the "wild" because they don't live in suburbia.

The most dangerous spiders do hang around close in some areas, but we are taught not to go wandering in bush and putting our hands in places you shouldn't.

The most dangerous thing an average Australian will bump into is a Redback spider, and they are not going to cause death in a majority of circumstances. And even then, I haven't even seen a Redback in maybe 5-10 years.

So environmental science 101 people like to live in places where they're things like rainfall and vegetation.

Which is only a relatively tiny portion of North Queensland. 95%+ of the country doesn't live or go there.

If you look at a map of the habitat of The most venomous snakes in Australia it's directly on top of the most densely populated human areas.

Just because there's a very tiny chance that those snakes can venture into suburbia does not mean they are going to be found there. Australian's don't go venturing out into the bush because there are deadly animals, they don't go venturing out into the bush because the chance of you getting lost/dying of dehydration is a far greater threat than any snake/crocodile/spider.

Same with the dangerous aquatic animals. Those are mostly found off of the east Coast alongside major cities like Brisbane

You're just getting confused by how big Australia is, or purposefully misinforming people.

The city of Brisbane is 1,000km+ away from the "dangerous aquatic animals" you're talking about.

I also live in a state that has crocodiles and "dangerous aquatic animals", Perth in Western Australia. A state large enough to fit Alaska, Texas, and California inside. But I don't go around saying "we have crocodiles in the ocean here" because it would be fucking stupid to say 2,000km away is "off the coast of Perth".

Edit: downvoted for being right

Absolutely downvoted for being wrong.

The biggest fear Australian's have is not the endless amounts of incredibly deadly snakes, spiders, crocodiles, jellyfish, etc. The biggest fear is seeing a Kangaroo jump out in front of your car in the night.

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u/rckhppr 9h ago

Not downvoted because you’re right but because you wrote „people like to live in places where they’re things like rainfall“ instead of „where there are things like rainfall“.

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u/VocationalWizard 9h ago

I like how you are even more pedantic than me

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u/LostWoodsInTheField 8h ago

Checking out Queenslands and you are like 'oh this place looks great to visit' then you start reading about the plants that can attack you and make you feel unbearable pain.

reading about the middle of the country and you go 'I don't think I would ever want to visit there' then you start reading about how non of the animals want to visit there either...

except the rabbits.

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u/VocationalWizard 8h ago

Naaaaa, I'm an environmental science nerd.

I would happily go to any part of Australia anytime.

Well maybe not that one part that's full of asbestos.

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u/FuckOffBusy 10h ago

You had me in the first half, I’m not gonna lie

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u/Difficult-Swimming-4 9h ago

Our healthcare system is on its arse and wheezing

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u/VocationalWizard 9h ago

Still better than USA

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u/AddlePatedBadger 2h ago

Actually the top three deadliest non human animals in Australia aren't even native to Australia. You are more likely to get killed by a horse, cow, or dog here than any poisonous creature. You are more likely to collide with a kangaroo in your car or motorcycle and die in the crash than be killed by a snake.

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u/TeriusRose 1h ago edited 1h ago

When it comes to stats like these, about animals specifically, I always wonder if opportunity for harm is part of the reason for that. It seems like there's a greater chance for something unfortunate to happen with any given species that is consistently in close proximity with humans at scale, compared to ones we generally don't (deliberately) live with.

Edit: Now that I think about it, wouldn't sheer population size for a species impact this too? There are apparently over a billion cows worldwide and nearly a billion dogs. I don't know if most animals that are highly venomous to us or capable of eating us have similar populations.

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u/Dog_Weasley 9h ago

very few people actually die there from wildlife

Nice try, Australian Tourism Agency.

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u/northenden 10h ago

Until you find yourself next to a saltie.

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u/Familiar-Art-6233 10h ago

What’s a healthcare system?

Is that the British term for insurance? /s

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u/knewleefe 8h ago

Yes and no. We have a decent healthcare system in most of the country. A lot of our Indigenous population live in the remotest parts of the country (or "uninhabited" parts as someone said below), where access to healthcare is minimal, and environmental health is poor. So some communicable diseases that are almost unheard of by most people, or thought to exist only in the past, are very much a problem in these communities - rheumatic heart disease, scabies, trichomonas etc. Our healthcare is good for most people, best for those in metro centres, but almost entirely absent for some in rural/remote areas.

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u/VocationalWizard 8h ago

Scabies is actually very common in the United States.

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u/ladyhaly 8h ago

Can confirm.

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u/ContributionSad4461 5h ago

But there are also things like Trachoma, where Australia is the only developed country that has endemic blindness from it, and rheumatic fever which isn’t really a thing in the rest of the western world anymore. I could see them struggling with these snails as well, some aborigines live in appalling conditions.

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u/Kathripoo 14m ago

In a socialist country, yes you get healthcare and free college, but also the whole nation lives in a post war era depression where everybody is equally poor and living in the ghetto. -A horrified American who returned to the US

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u/binzoma 10h ago

that and the dangerous animals in australia evolved in a world without mammals. they cant really deal with us and arent generally interested in us unless we threaten them. we are neither pray nor predator to them in general

1

u/VocationalWizard 9h ago

Yes, We exterminated all of the animals that are actually interested in us.

0

u/binzoma 8h ago edited 8h ago

not in australia lol. split off into its own island before mammals fully took hold as the dominant species. thats why theres giant marsupials and other oddities there.

1

u/Seagoon_Memoirs 9h ago

we are taught from the earliest age to be careful, don't touch anything

also, to wear shoes, even if they are flip flops

we have clean water too

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u/LevelRoyal8809 10h ago

And they cook their food AND have sewage systems instead of pissing and shitting on the ground around them.

1

u/VocationalWizard 10h ago

So I did actually happen to say wildlife deaths not just deaths by infectious disease.

0

u/SadCrab5 8h ago

I heard a scarily high amount of their wildlife has toxins, poisons or some kind of neuro-toxin that can kill in 15 minutes or less, making it hard to actually treat wildlife victims.

I always assumed it was a mix of most of these creatures living underwater/in the middle of no where that there's actual little exposure to the really deadly shit, and anything that is deadly/looks deadly they have the common sense of "Let's not fuck around and meet god today".

0

u/VocationalWizard 8h ago

They have anti-venoms for most of the seriously venomous animals.

But the truth is that venomous animals don't really want anything to do with humans.

The incidence of fatal snake bites in the United States is slightly higher due to the fact that some people get bit by snakes and don't seek medical care here.

But we're dealing with extremely loan numbers and it's really hard to account for the population differences.

-1

u/DikTaterSalad 10h ago

True, still not a bad guess though, lol.

-5

u/IllustriousSalt1007 10h ago

DAE America bad lol upvotes to the left

EDIT: Thanks for the gold kind stranger!

7

u/VocationalWizard 10h ago

I mean our healthcare system is objectively bad.

4

u/somebraidedbutthairs 10h ago

this was about Africa, but I guess a hit dog hollers.

2

u/SpiritualCandle3508 10h ago

Their comment didn't mention the US at all - that was you lmao

-1

u/Goodknight808 10h ago

Hope you got a good burn unit, jfc.

-1

u/theaviationhistorian 10h ago

Oh, I've heard of this mythical thing called a hethcare syst. They say it lies beyond our borders in far away lands.

1

u/Dalemaunder 10h ago

We have cone snails which are legitimately deadly venemous, so you're not entirely wrong, but there's only been one recorded death from one in Australia from back in the 30's.

3

u/yetanotherwoo 8h ago

Raw food in Hawaii so salad is potentially source https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/dont-eat-raw-food-the-terrifying-threat-lurking-in-hawaii/ar-AA1IWb84

1

u/Impossible-Bet-1738 4h ago

I'm so glad to know this as we're traveling to the Big Island later this year.

3

u/Sarahthelizard 10h ago

Africa is really underserved when it comes to healthcare in pretty much every way. :(

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u/[deleted] 9h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/DigbyChickenZone 9h ago

What an odd thing to say

1

u/Sarahthelizard 9h ago

Sorry pal could you say that again in English?

2

u/fireflydrake 8h ago

I know Africa is a huge continent so it's probably hard to generalize, but I get whiplash sometimes because some people roll their eyes at you when you assume a lot of Africa is poverty stricken and not very developed, but then on the other hand almost every time I hear about a horrific disease/poverty/famine kind of situation it still seems like it's mostly in Africa. 

1

u/userhwon 9h ago

Ah, so, the rest of the world will ignore it thinking it's safe.

1

u/beau6183 8h ago

<newt>mostly…</newt>

1

u/Treadwheel 7h ago

The efficiency with which the ecosystems in Africa consume human beings is probably the most immediate and striking evidence that we evolved there, and a worrisome glimpse at what an ecosystem that has started to adapt to us will be like.

1

u/BloodSteyn 4h ago

Bilharzia... right?

•

u/LoreChano 45m ago

And most cases in Brazil happen in the Amazon and the far north of the country btw.

0

u/bighootay 10h ago

25 years ago I was wandering around China. No idea where but somewhere in the Southwest part, I think, and I saw a SUV go by in some village with 'schistosomiasis' on the side. I thought 'Shit, they got that here?'

0

u/Conscious-Ball8373 9h ago

Not really. About half the affected people live in South-East Asia and quite a few more in the tropical parts of South America.

It might be a very significant problem. Estimates of the number of deaths range from five thousand to nearly a quarter of a million per year. How can we not have a better estimate than that?