Comments on: Fatal Infection

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:49:10 +0000

Hmmm…diabetes doesn’t rank high enough to rate?

By: Nagy GÃ¡bor

Nagy GÃ¡bor — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:56:28 +0000

Ganoderma is the common name of a species of fungus, Ganoderma lucidum, also known as lingzhi or red mushroom. The fungus is used in many forms of traditional Asian medicine and is believed to have considerable healing powers. Medical studies conducted with the mushroom suggest that it does have some medicinal applications, but the understanding of why it works or what it treats remains a mystery.

By: Ñ‘ÐºÐ»Ð¼Ð½

Ñ‘ÐºÐ»Ð¼Ð½ — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:48:26 +0000

By: Dr Feelgood

Dr Feelgood — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:18:43 +0000

@Belshazzar “If the y-axis metric is survival time outside the body, shouldnâ€™t the two HIV datapoints have the same y-value?”

That one threw me off too. Looks like the chart draws the circle ABOVE the data point, rather than centered on the point.

By: Andrew Kandel

Andrew Kandel — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:03:47 +0000

minor comment, but you might want to spell check “tuberculosis”

By: Chobr

Chobr — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:16:58 +0000

Should add that latent TB infection can reactivate years later and manifest as actual tuberculosis, which is why contact tracing, case-identification and treatment of even asymptomatic individuals is important.

By: Chobr

Chobr — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:14:44 +0000

Love the chart, as long as reasonable caveats taken when interpreting it. Specifically, the difficulties encountered in collecting accurate and comparable data on different diseases. As has been stated, many infections will never be formally diagnosed, seasonal flu being the prime example. Thus, the case fatality rates will either be abnormally high if based on known cases, or would have to be based on estimates and extrapolations on known data.

It has been estimated that approximately 1/3 of the world’s population has been infected with tuberculosis – by your figures with a case-fatality of almost 50%, that would consign about a billion people to a consumptive death. The discrepancy is in the distinction between TB infection (which in many people can lie ‘dormant’ in what is termed ‘Latent TB Infection’ and does not cause symptoms or kill people) and tuberculosis the disease, which is the clinical manifestation of rampant TB infection. It is the actual disease that has the high mortality. Lastly, ‘tuberculosis’ has been spelled wrongly on the charts!

By: christmas shopping

christmas shopping — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:00:22 +0000

Thanks for such a nice post. It is very informative post. I am wondering if I can share your article in the bookmarks of society

By: Belshazzar

Belshazzar — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:20:46 +0000

If the y-axis metric is survival time outside the body, shouldn’t the two HIV datapoints have the same y-value?

By: Tim Showers

Tim Showers — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:13:01 +0000

I believe your graph is scaled incorrectly.

It seems you’re determining circle size by matching the radius to the fatality rate instead of the matching total area to fatality rate, so AIDS (untreated), with a 85% fatality rate is 22x the area of Bubonic Plague, instead of the expected 17x, and more than four thousand times as large as seasonal flu, instead of the expected 850x!

It’s possible I’ve mis-measured (admittedly I just used the webdeveloper extension’s ruler instead of zooming all the way in photoshop), but I think you just need to change how you’re determining circle size. The circle’s radius should be sqrt(desired final area * pi), instead of (desired area * scaling factor).

I could be totally off base here, but working with area in charts is tricky, and this is a common mistake.