Those are bonkers (low) numbers compared to the 3.5M (human?) cases if I'm to believe the GPs comment.
replyIt's also crazy how much Mother Theresa's quote rings true, even in reverse ("If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.") When I initially read 3.5M cases, I thought "wow, that's a lot", and somehow the 445 animal cases in Cameroon felt (at first) more real and similarly "a lot".
No comment other than interesting how our human brains work and distort how numbers "feel".
Once my rational brain kicked in, realized that's over 5,000 years for the current number of animal cases to match the former number of human cases. The future is awesome.
If you halve the cases every year you'll eradicate it in a generation.
replyIt was a somewhat recent discovery that there were animal reservoirs escaping detection. Carter had hoped to outlive the worm, but it was thought that the animal pools were going to make full eradication take an additional 20 years.
replyBut the question would be how many more go undetected in those animals. (I.e if wild animals carry it, how accurate are these numbers).
replyglancing at the wikipedia page on the topic it seems that it is limited to dogs, cat and baboons, and animal hosts have been only proved in the 2010s, so I guess they are unlikely to become infected by the parasite
reply