Word: mosquitoes
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...whistles sound across the scruffy courtyard as the residents of Grozny doze through a sticky, mosquito-filled night. The men guarding this apartment building are signaling to one another that all is clear. They're not police or regular soldiers but lookouts for a Wahhabi Jamaat, an urban guerrilla group of about 20 men loyal to Chechen rebel commander Shamil Basayev. Unlike other Chechens fighting purely for their republic's independence, the Wahhabis want to create an Islamic state across the Caucasus and are almost fundamentalist in their outlook. They are deeply critical of the easygoing approach of more secular...
...side of the fishing zone, or at least ditch its catch and equipment. In this case, the 7-m wooden fishing boat (designated a "Type 3") is too far inside Australian waters to flee. Instead, the Customs crew thinks, it will try to hide behind large rocks or in mosquito-infested mangroves. The boat's presence is unquestionably illegal. But the foreign fishers have few alternatives. Almost all of them are from Merauke, a village in Indonesia's Irian Jaya, about 145 nautical mi. (270 km) to the northwest. If they can avoid detection, the men could bring home...
...better understand why malaria has become such a threat and what can be done to stop the disease, it helps to know a little biology. Malaria is caused by four closely related parasites, the deadliest of which is Plasmodium falciparum, which has a particular fondness for anopheles mosquitoes. The parasites enter the bloodstream when an infected mosquito bites a human. Then they multiply inside the host's liver and red blood cells. (That's why pregnant women, who make lots of blood to nourish their growing fetus, are especially vulnerable.) Eventually the red blood cells burst with a new generation...
...zones, including the U.S., are not immune. A malaria outbreak in Florida last summer that hospitalized seven people was the first extended case of local transmission on U.S. soil in nearly 20 years. The cause was almost certainly a parasite that hopped a ride in a human or a mosquito on an international flight or ocean vessel, since none of the patients had recently ventured overseas...
...what about prevention? Many African countries are working to sell or distribute low-cost insecticide-impregnated mosquito nets. These function as traps for mosquitoes, which are attracted by the carbon dioxide that sleepers exhale and are then killed by the insecticide. The nets are portable, so they can be taken along by their owners if they need to move. In villages where at least 80% of pregnant women and children under age 5 sleep beneath insecticide-impregnated mosquito nets, the rate of illness for all residents has dropped dramatically. Unfortunately, only 1% or 2% of people in malarial zones sleep...