Stagamancer writes:
Except, it could only increase virulence at the vector stage, and in order to get transmitted, a disease needs to not kill off its vector. I would actually predict there wouldn't be an increase in virulence then, because it would only serve to kill off it's own vector.
Virulence does not mean lethality. Malaria could increase its virulence by infecting more mosquitoes, becoming more likely to infect through an infected mosquito, or even by completing its incubation faster. I don't recall anything about malaria being detrimental to the life cycle of mosquitoes so any of those would have no particular impact on the vector.
Stagamancer writes:
Um, reducing vectors is a good thing. Vector-transmitted diseases tend to be more virulent than non-vector-transmitted ones. Eradication of the disease is pretty much not going to happen, so let's focus on decreasing virulence and transmission.
Sure, reducing vectors is wonderful. If we could kill all infected mosquitoes within 10 days of their infection then malaria would be dead right there. I don't agree that the eradication of the disease isn't going to happen, at least within human hosts. We have eradicated diseases before so there is no reason to think it cannot happen again. I am certainly not arguing against the attack of vectors, I am arguing against the attack of vectors *instead* of direct attacks on the organism. I disagree with your statement that those attacks are not helpful, in the sense of evolutionary theory, at reducing their impact on humans.
Stagamancer writes:
By saying "destroying every human malaria case" do you mean killing people with malaria? ... If that's not what you mean, then what exactly are you getting at?
I mean by developing medicines and treatments that can finish off a malaria case within a human before it has a chance to spread. Human infection is a stage in the life of human strains, and if they don't survive it the cycle of life does not go on. If we can consistently cure a large majority of human cases before they manage to reproduce and spread then that is strong evolutionary pressure for being unfit for the environment.