Rabies Antibodies Detected Among Some Peruvians

By on August 3, 2012 in News 9

Via NPR:

Left untreated, infection with rabies virus almost always results in a painful death. There has been some limited success with experimental treatment regimens (notably the Milwaukee Protocol), but these are exceptions to the rule: Once the symptoms begin to manifest, the only options left for treatment are palliative in nature. Recently, though, scientists discovered a small group of Peruvians who carry rabies antibodies. They’re not sure why they do, but one theory is that repeated exposure to the virus through the bites of vampire bats may have helped them gradually develop immunity. NPR has the story:

In remote regions of the Amazon jungle, small communities of people live near bat roosts, and rabies infections are relatively common among them. At least five outbreaks killed 19 people in the Peruvian Amazon in 2009.

So a team from the CDC, lead by disease ecologist Amy Gilbert, went to two villages near these outbreaks looking for signs of rabies exposure in healthy people. They took blood samples from 63 villagers and measured their levels of rabies antibodies — signs that someone has fought off an infection or received a vaccine.

Anxiously check your exposed skin for bites and keep reading at NPR.

 

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  • Jesus Borg

    people living in the Amazon probably have immunity to all types of shit.

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    in 1493 a great plague began in the Americas
    95% of the population died within 100 years
    the remaining 5% had the necessary immunities to survive
    nature has a safety valve

    but it wasn’t prepared for the extermination of the remaining 5%
    there’s no immunity against colonial imperialism
    if they find some Peruvians with that antibody
    it’s a big story

    • Jesus Borg

      Actually there is a shitload of Indians in Latin America. Was it the same story down there as in North America? From what I understand there are only about a million native Americans in North America.

      Plus the Latin American Indians became peasants. North American Indians never became peasants. Alexis de Tocqueville in “Democracy in America” described them as self styled aristocrats.

      I think the North American Indians were less disease resistant but more Bad ass. People like Gall and Crazy Horse come to mind. Hard to picture them becoming peasants.

      I think Marxism makes more sense in Latin America, because the Indians there are a lot more like Russian peasants.  

      • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

        you have most of your factiods wrong
        the book 1493 could clear up a lot your info

        for example:
        Crazy Horse was alive almost 400 years after 1493
        and he was murdered and not killed by disease

        de Tocqueville’s observation occur 300 years
        after Plymouth Rock
        most of the East Coast American Indians are dead
        or on reservations by that time

        > I think Marxism makes more sense in Latin America, because the Indians there are a lot more like Russian peasants.

        no ISM makes sense for anybody, anywhere at any time
        period

        • Jesus Borg

          I didn’t say Crazy Horse was killed by disease. I just said that obviously things didn’t go the same way in Latin America as in North America. Hence, no big population of Indian Peasants in North America.

          You may like to Think of North American Indians as peasants opressed by Colonialism, but its not historically accurate. They never thought of themselves that way. Yes The North Amerian Indians, were eradicaterd by disease, I already know all that shit, but the ones that survived “bore not the yoke” They never allowed themselves to become agricultural slaves, unlike many Europeans/Middle Easterners/Asians.

          I think if not for the Industrial Revolution and the eradication of the Buffalo, The Plains Indians would have eventually become in many ways very similiar to the Mongols, and Other Warlike Nomadic Pastoralists of the Steppes of Central Asia. They would have been a force to be reckoned with, but through accidents of geography (the Great Plains being smaller than the Eurasian Steppes) The rapid advancement of Population of European Settlers, trechnological progress. That’s not how it panned out.

          Ironically I think had the South won the Civil War the West may never have been conquered by whites.

          As far as Empire being a white thing its not. The Indians had empires too. Mayans, Aztecs, Mohawks etc.

          • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

            You may like to Think of North American Indians as peasants opressed … but its not historically accurate.
            They never thought of themselves that way.

            I think your understanding
            of the Holocaust of the American Indians
            is deficient and
            insulting to the American Indians.
            Hetchetu aloh!

            The difference between the Western Empires
            and the Empires of the Americas
            is they were not global empires
            and it never occurred to them to be global empires.

          • Jin The Ninja

            again, you totally paint all native americans with the same homogeneous brush.

            they, pre-contact, were very diverse. they are, after contact very diverse.

            and by the way do you know that the term ‘mongol’ is an overarching term used to describe various steppe peoples?

            and the mohawk and iroquois confederacies were not imperial in nature.

          • Jin The Ninja

            and native people do think of themselves as historically ‘oppressed’ – and your implication is grossly offensive- what do you think they teach in post-colonial/aboriginal studies? niceties of the pilgrims 101? so-residential schools, mass displacement, broken treaties and germ warfare are ‘equality’? although your post was filled with glaring inaccuracies- most of it was just stupid. until i reread that part- which was sheer spite. which suits you as a model protectionist.

  • Infvocuernos

    Rant Casey anyone?