User talk:DeWolfeMiller

Awan High Dam
The comment "The dam has been implicated in a rise in cases of schistosomiasis (bilharzia), due to the thick plant life that has grown up in Lake Nasser, which hosts the snails who carry the disease." is incorrect. There are no major settlements along the lake shore. There are fishermen on the lake but this population relative to the population of >70 million people down stream from the High Dam are too small to consider a "rise in cases". Soon after the High Dam was closed, numerous environmental articles claimed that the Dam would create a major increase in schistosomiasis. Some even claimed a plague of schistosomiasis would occur. These claims were not based on epidemiologic data. Two species of schistosomes have historically existed in Egypt. One species has all but disappeared. The other species, occurs essentially in the Nile Delta at the opposite end of the Nile river from the Dam. This species, S. mansoni, has been controlled by decades of treatment programs. The idea that schistosomiasis increased in the Nile valley north of the Dam after it was closed is not based on evidence.