According to the World Health Organization, malaria is responsible for approximately 445,000 deaths every year. That number may be due to drop, however, as scientists have found that a human-safe blue dye kills parasites in patients' bloodstreams within two days – that's faster than has ever been possible before.
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That's where the methylene blue dye comes in.In field tests conducted in Mali, it was added to artemisinin-based medication, and was found to eradicate all gametocytes in patients' bloodstreams within as little as 48 hours. The dye is typically used in laboratories to distinguish dead cells from living cells, and was reportedly well-tolerated by the test subjects. It does, however, have one interesting side effect.
According to the lead scientist it turns your urine blue, which is reason enough for anybody to take it, really.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday February 09 2018, @06:27PM
I'm rather certain that humans aren't either the preferred or only host for malaria (in any of its stages), but given their number and size of people they're probably the most common one. Not quite the same thing.
I'd be quite cautious about indiscriminately dousing the landscape with methylene blue, but it's certainly been used for human consumption for a very long time. I expect that as soon as it was discovered it was used for a practical joke that involved people consuming it. So while it may, over time, have bad effects on humans, a short course shouldn't pose any problems. (As has been pointed out, it's already used as a medicine...and several people in my organic chem class reported on it's use in practical jokes. In fact, I think my wife reported on using it as a food dye when she was a kid...and neither she nor the folks in my chem class would have had access to pharmaceutical grade.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.