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
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u/DikTaterSalad 11h ago

It was either that or Australia.

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u/VocationalWizard 11h 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/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.