This is an I-Heart podcast.

Howdy, friends?

Just a heads up that we're talking about parasites again.

And as you're probably aware of by now, that can get pretty gross.

Also, it's kind of upsetting to hear about parasite life cycles and the effects of parasites on our health.

I get that.

Today, we're going to be talking about malaria, schistocymiasis, and hookworm.

So decide if those are topics you are prepared to hear about. All right, here we go.

According to the World Health Organization, in 2023, about 263 million people were infected by malaria,

of which 597,000 passed away from this disease. Most of these deaths happened in Africa,

and 76% of the deaths were children under five. You might remember from a past episode that we were able to create a vaccine for smallpox

and that that vaccine was used to wipe smallpox off the face of the planet, saving

humanity from this ancient scourge.

And yes, thanks to all who wrote in, I pronounce the word correctly now.

We also have vaccines for other bacterial and viral infections like polio, chickenpox,

human papillomavirus, COVID-19, measles, mumps, etc. With the exception of some tricky viruses

like HIV which hide in our immune cells, we've had a lot of success making vaccines for viral

and bacterial infections.

And we know that our immune systems attack big stuff, as well as the little stuff like bacteria and viruses.

In a past episode, we talked about how our immune systems will attack entire organs following

a transplant.

So why do our immune systems seem to do such a crummy job of attacking parasites in our bodies, things like nematodes?

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