[IvyMike]

I had a discussion with a friend, and he pointed out that Malaria infects something like 200 million people a year in Africa, and kills around half a million. It's brutal.

So this new paper is projecting that Ebola deaths in Africa will be about as common as Malaria deaths.

I guess I'm trying to draw any conclusions or imply anything here other than life in Africa is pretty freakin' tough.

[gizmo686]

The two main differences I see are: 1) The Ebola death rate is still increasing, which makes it scarier that Malaria, which has a relativly stable death rate. 2) Malaria (being tied to mosquitoes) is inherently a regional disease. Ebola has much more potential to spread to other regions.

[ohitsdom]

The most important difference is that a Malaria-infected person isn't contagious.

[baddox]

> So this new paper is projecting that Ebola deaths in Africa will be about as common as Malaria deaths.

Unless the diseases start "competing" with each other. You can't really die of both. I don't know if the demographics of the two diseases overlap enough that this might happen.