[somenameforme]

I find these sort of things somewhat odd. Dengue is extremely unpleasant, but as the article mentions it has a 99.98% survival rate in spite of being predominantly spread in some of the most impoverished areas in the world. Wiki [1] gives even better figures than the article which yield a 99.99% survival rate, and a total hospitalization rate of 0.13%.

Unforeseen consequences are a thing, and nature can evolve in difficult to predict ways. For instance one of the big early arguments for GMO crops is that it'd enable us to reduce our overall usage of herbicides. The main modification was glyphosate resistance, and since glyphosate was otherwise highly toxic to all plants, it was thought that just a bit of it would be enough to take care of what used to require much more herbicide.

And it lived up to this promise at first. But nature responded by naturally evolving glyphosate resistant weeds, and farmers responded by just spraying more of it, and more regularly, and we're now using more herbicide/acre than ever before. In 1991 (just prior to GMO crops starting to really kick off), we were using a rate of 1.18 units of herbicide per acre. By 2000 that had declined to 1.06. "Now" (2014) we're up to 2.02 and rapidly increasing. [2]

So many things (related to interacting with nature in various forms) seem to be being done under the assumption of a stationary target, when nature is anything but.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever

[2] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5044953/

[ian0]

The 2022 mortality rate for dengue in Indonesia is 0.86%, with most of the fatalities being young kids. ~1200 people in 2022. [0]

It could be that the figures match your own as not everyone goes to a clinic when they have it - much more likely when its a bad dose. But a huge amount of people get it each year.

Ive had it twice. Can confirm - it sucks.

[0] https://www.kompas.id/baca/humaniora/2023/09/08/tren-angka-k...

[stubish]

Dengue has a huge emotional and economic cost beyond the dry survival rate statistics.

The article quotes a researcher flat out stating "the virus will probably find a way to overcome the Wolbachia effect". They still think their work to ease the agony and suffering of millions is worthwhile, despite it not being a magic bullet.

[c_o_n_v_e_x]

Presumably, the 99% survival rate is for the first infection. Follow on infections of dengue are increasingly dangerous.

[foota]

I believe conditions like this cause impact to people's livelihood by putting them out of action.

Caring for the sick also has economic costs.

[matheusmoreira]

It causes massive economic impact! Where I live Aedes aegypti is extremely common and Chikungunya routinely causes people to miss work for over 6 months due to intense chronic pain. The impact on the public health care and social security systems is huge. These patients frequently need opioids on a daily basis because all other treatments failed.

[Izkata]

Dengue is the poster child for antibody dependent enhancement: The first infection is typically pretty mild, but there's 4 Dengue strains and a second infection with one of the other 3 is much more severe.

The original vaccines for these had to be scrapped because they had the same effect, though current ones work against all 4 strains.