Dog vaccination essential for preventing rabies spread to humans and animals

by Stephen Johns, Imperial College London

Potential rabies reservoir systems in south-east Tanzania. Here humans are indicated as

 the target population, but the target may include livestock or endangered wildlife, for

example African Wild Dogs (Lycaon pictus). We investigate whether the reservoir consists 

of both maintenance and non-maintenance populations (a and b) transmitting infection to 

the non-maintenance target (humans); or either two maintenance (c) or non-maintenance

 (d) populations which are capable of transmitting infection to the target. 

Credit: DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.13983

A coordinated and sustained program of dog vaccination is essential for preventing rabies spread to humans and animals, according to new research.

Research, led by academics at Imperial, the University of Glasgow and Ifakara Health Institute, and published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, found that rabies incidence in both humans and domestic dogs decreased during a period of sustained dog vaccination in southeast Tanzania, despite incidences of ongoing wildlife rabies infections.

The team found that even in areas with a relatively high proportion of wildlife rabies cases, the domestic dog vaccination campaign still reduced the risk to humans. However, after mass dog vaccination ended in early 2017, rabies cases began to rise in some areas once again.

A deadly disease

Rabies is one of the world's most feared diseases due to its high case fatality rate.

Despite the existence of safe and effective vaccines, rabies continues to kill an estimated 59,000 people annually in low-and middle-income countries, with children disproportionately affected. For this reason, in 2015 a call for action set the "Zero by 30' goal, to achieve zero human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030.

Most human rabies cases result from bites by rabid animals, either from domestic dogs or, less commonly, wild animals including jackals. Once exposed, immediate treatment is vital as rabies is invariably fatal once clinical signs develop.

Treatment consists of a course of vaccinations known as post-exposure prophylaxis, which although highly effective, can be difficult to access due to the cost, limited availability, and low awareness of rabies risks.

Across Africa and Asia, domestic dogs are considered the main hosts for rabies, and over 99% of human rabies deaths are caused by dog bites. Vaccination of domestic dogs against rabies has repeatedly been shown to be successful and cost-effective in preventing human rabies.

However, despite this, in many rabies-endemic countries dog vaccination is still not routine. This is primarily due to lack of investment in dog vaccination, but concerns are often expressed that wildlife may play a role in maintaining transmission and dog vaccination may therefore be ineffective.

Exploring transmission dynamics

To answer these concerns the researchers investigated the transmission dynamics of rabies in a previously unstudied area of Tanzania where jackals were found to make up more than 40% of reported animal rabies cases.

Collecting data over a nine-year period from 13 districts in southern Tanzania, they used hospital records to identify people potentially exposed to rabies who were then traced and interviewed to determine if the biting animal was rabid. As part of this they were able to examine evidence on whether rabies transmission is sustained in wildlife as well as in domestic dogs, and whether wildlife could present an obstacle to rabies elimination.

The researchers found that rabies incidence in both humans and animals decreased during the period of dog vaccinations, from a high of 218 cases in 2011 to a low of just 15 in 2017. Most human rabies exposures (56%) were from domestic dogs, but approximately one third of transmission events occurred in wildlife, with the remainder due to cross-species transmission between dogs and wildlife.

Reducing the risk to humans

These findings highlight the potential importance of wildlife as a rabies public health threat and also a potential obstacle to elimination. However, even in areas with a relatively a high proportion of wildlife cases, the researchers found that domestic dog vaccination still significantly reduced the risk of rabies infection to humans.

One of the lead authors of the study, Sarah Hayes, from the School of Public Health, said: "Even in this part of Tanzania, where wildlife makes up a large proportion of the reported rabies cases, we have shown that vaccinating domestic dogs can significantly reduce the risk to people and have an important public health impact.

"It is critical that there is continued investment in domestic dog vaccination and this work suggests that the presence of rabies within wildlife populations should not be a barrier to implementing these programs."

Professor Katie Hampson, from the University of Glasgow, said: "Our findings confirm that, even in areas where wildlife rabies cases are high, focusing on domestic dog vaccination will have major public health benefits. Moreover, if sustained and coordinated a dog vaccination program has the potential to eliminate rabies from circulating even in these areas despite the presence of wildlife transmission.

"We were surprised to see how many wildlife rabies cases were occurring in this part of Tanzania. Jackal cases represented a far higher proportion of rabies cases than we've seen elsewhere in East Africa. This was why it was such a relief to see that, even with such high numbers of cases in jackals, dog vaccination still led to very clear declines in rabies, in all species, and in people bitten by rabid animals—both dogs and jackals."

Kennedy Lushasi, from the Ifakara Health Institute, said: "Even though wildlife cases, especially jackals appear to make up a large proportion of animal rabies cases and of bites to people in south-eastern Tanzania, vaccinating domestic dogs alone resulted in the decline of cases in all species. This suggests that wildlife should not be an obstacle in eliminating rabies. The government and other stakeholders should invest in mass dog vaccination programs and these should be sustained to make rabies history."

The paper, "Reservoir Dynamics of Rabies in Southeast Tanzania and the role of cross-species transmission," is published in Journal of Applied Ecology.

Dog rabies vaccination programs affect human exposure, prophylaxis use

More information: Kennedy Lushasi et al, Reservoir dynamics of rabies in south‐east Tanzania and the roles of cross‐species transmission and domestic dog vaccination, Journal of Applied Ecology (2021). DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.13983

Journal information: Journal of Applied Ecology 

Provided by Imperial College London 

Most stray cats die before they turn one, so what's the best way to deal with them?

by Trish Fleming, Heather M. Crawford, Mike Calver, Tida Nou, The Conversation

Credit: Shutterstock

Odds are, if you've seen a cat prowling around your neighborhood, it doesn't have an owner. Australia is home to hordes of unowned cats, with an estimated 700,000 living without appropriate care in urban areas, around rubbish dumps or on farms.

Unowned cats are sometimes called "stray" or "semi-feral": they, or their parents, were once owned by humans but are now abandoned or lost. Unowned stray cats rely heavily on human settlements for food and shelter and breed freely. Feral cats, on the other hand, live in the wild and can survive without relying on people for food.

Like their feral counterparts, unowned cats are a public health threat, they can fight with or transmit diseases to pet cats, and they kill native wildlife. And, of course, they themselves suffer poor welfare. In fact, our recent studies show unowned cats have significantly shorter lives than pet cats, with less than half surviving their first year.

It's vital we find effective ways to reduce their numbers—but what's the best way to go about this?

Street cats have hard, short lives

Free-roaming cats have hard lives on the streets. Even when they're owned by someone, things can come to a sticky end.

Numerous international studies report high death rates for roaming pet cats, with causes including road accidents and accidental poisoning. They're also frequently injured or killed by domestic dogs.

Even Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's cat Paddles, the "first cat" of New Zealand, was killed by a car in 2017.

Unowned cats encounter the same issues and more, but without an owner to provide immediate veterinary attention. So it's no surprise free-roaming unowned cats have low life expectancy.

We analyzed the demographics of free-roaming unowned cats in Perth, Western Australia. The 145 unowned cats we studied had significantly shorter lives than the 899 pet cats in Perth. The median age of unowned cats was just eight to ten months. By contrast, the median age for pet cats was about five years.

The unowned cats in our study looked healthy, were reproductive, and had few external parasites. However, these animals were the ones that had survived long enough to be trapped and studied. Cats often hide when traumatized or ill, and so sick cats will often just "disappear".

Alarmingly, 58% of the cats we examined had consumed dangerous refuse, including sharp, dangerous items or indigestible material that blocked their gastrointestinal tracts. Nearly all (95%) carried substantial loads of transmissible helminth parasites.

Across Australia's states and territories, there are two main approaches local governments use to manage unowned cat populations in urban and regional areas: trap and euthanase or trap and adopt.

Another approach is to trap, desex and return cats to their point of capture (called "trap-neuter-return"). Although this is currently being undertaken by private individuals and groups in capital cities and some towns, it is considered illegal across most jurisdictions in Australia, as it is construed as abandonment or releasing an invasive species.

1. Euthanasia

In most parts of the country, where problems with unowned cats have been reported, they are trapped and removed. This normally means euthanasia.

For example, in Brisbane, a council program that ran since 2013 efficiently reduced the numbers of unowned cats with euthanasia, with complaints about stray cats falling from about 140 to just ten per year, over five years.

But high rates of euthanasia for unowned cats can be problematic for many people, especially for veterinarians undertaking the task. It can be traumatic and challenging to euthanise healthy cats just because they are unwanted.

2. Trap-neuter-return programs

Some believe desexing cats and returning them to street life, with supplementary feeding, is a solution to large numbers of unwanted cats, because it avoids euthanasia.

But overseas studies have shown trap-neuter-return programs encourage abandonment of unwanted cats at feeding stations. Numbers of cats can actually go up, despite best efforts.

And what is the quality of life for returned cats? Given the difficult, short lives of free-roaming cats, trap-neuter-return programs are arguably a less ethical choice with poor welfare outcomes for the cats themselves. There have even been calls in Japan to revise trap-neuter-return policies on account of poor health and well-being of the cats.

Returning neutered animals to where they were found may also violate state laws. Enforcing these laws is critical to reduce unowned cat populations, improve the welfare of cats, and discourage dumping of unwanted pets.

Desexing cats is an important way to curb the numbers of unowned cats on the streets. 

But cats shouldn’t be returned to where they were found. Credit: Shutterstock

3. Adopt a cat

In May, the ACT government released an ambitious and targeted ten-year plan with the vision that, by 2031, "all cats in the ACT will be owned, wanted and cared for by responsible owners." It is an exemplar of what the community can do to improve the lives of cats, and we believe it should be modeled elsewhere in Australia.

The plan has been developed to raise best practice standards, recognizing the duty of care needed to ensure the health and well-being of cats.

This starts with responsible owners. It calls for improved compliance with compulsory desexing and registration. To encourage people to comply, the ACT government will be implementing free or low-cost desexing and free microchipping. Compulsory containment for new cats acquired after July 1, 2022 is also on the cards.

The plan provides a strategy to trap roaming cats, with improvements in how pet cats can be identified and returned to their owners, while unowned neighborhood cats will be put up for adoption.

So what do we do about it?

Well, we know two tasks are critical: removing unowned cats from the streets, and reducing unwanted breeding and abandonment of cats.

Trap-neuter-return programs can do more harm than good because cats still live a hard life on the streets and may lead to some people feeling comfortable abandoning unwanted cats at the release sites. And while euthanasia has been shown to be effective, it can be a difficult choice.

Instead, Australia must boost efforts to socialize and adopt unowned cats, and enforce laws that stop owned cats free-roaming the streets. This will require enormous effort with community education, but it is a compassionate choice addressing all problems caused by free-roaming cats (both owned and unowned).

If you're inspired to give a cat a "furrever" home, contact your nearest cat welfare organization or local council. And if you already have a pet cat, it's important to keep it on your property all day, every day—not only to protect native wildlife, but to protect the cats themselves.

Cats prefer to get free meals rather than work for them

Provided by The Conversation 

 

Afghanistan has vast mineral wealth but faces steep challenges to tap it

by Scott L. Montgomery, The Conversation

A map of mineral resources published by the United States Geological Survey in 2007. 

Credit: United States Geological Survey

The official ending of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan leaves a number of long-term questions, including how the country can build a functioning economy. Now that U.S. assistance has evaporated and international aid is largely shut off, what options does Afghanistan have?

One possibility resides in natural resources. Afghanistan possesses a wealth of nonfuel minerals whose value has been estimated at more than US$1 trillion. For millennia the country was renowned for its gemstones—rubies, emeralds, tourmalines and lapis lazuli. These minerals continue to be locally extracted, both legally and illegally, in mostly small, artisanal mines. Far more value, however, lies with the country's endowments of iron, copper, lithium, rare earth elements, cobalt, bauxite, mercury, uranium and chromium.

While the total abundance of minerals is certainly vast, scientific understanding of these resources is still at an exploratory stage. Even with a better understanding of how rewarding their extraction might be, the presence of these resources will not provide a jump-start to a new economy. As a geologist who has studied the extent of their resources, I estimate a minimum of seven to 10 years will be needed for large-scale mining to become a major new source of revenue.

USGS follows the Soviets

British and German geologists conducted the earliest modern surveys of Afghanistan's minerals in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But it was the Soviets in the 1960s and 1970s who performed the most systematic exploratory work throughout the country, producing a large body of detailed information that stood as the backbone to more recent studies.

From 2004 to 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted a detailed review of available data, adding new information from its own aerial survey, limited field checking and from the Afghanistan Geological Survey. This work better identified mineral sites, richness and abundance.

No one who examines this work, as I have, can ignore the large-scale exploratory effort by Soviet scientists. Detailed field mapping and massive sampling, including tens of thousands of meters of borehole drilling, and lab analyses were performed. Given the time and money invested, it would appear high-level plans were in play to develop Afghanistan's minerals once the country was under Soviet influence.

Based largely on this information, the USGS delineated 24 areas in the country and estimated their mineral abundance. Data packages were prepared on all 24 areas for companies to use as a basis for making bids to exploit any resources.

Chinese and Indian companies expressed strong interest, and actual concessions were granted. Arguments over contract terms and concerns about security, however, have stalled activity since the late 2010s.

Mineral abundance

How much mineral abundance does Afghanistan actually have? I'll try to answer this with a brief summary of USGS estimates for metals of special interest: copper, iron, lithium and rare earth metals. Geoscientists who were part of the USGS effort have noted that their figures are "conservative" but also "preliminary."

Regardless, it's safe to say the resources in total are huge. Total copper resources for all known deposits sum to about 57.7 million metric tons. At current prices, the resource value is $516 billion. These are "undiscovered" resources—identified but not fully explored and assessed. If further study were to judge them recoverable at a profit, they would rank Afghanistan among the top five nations for copper reserves in the world.

A Chinese company built this mining camp at Mes Aynak in Afghanistan about 10 years 

ago to house workers for a planned copper mine that never began production. The people

 in the front were taking part in an archaeological dig. 

Credit: Jerome Starkey/flicrk, CC BY-SA

The largest copper deposit, which also contains significant amounts of cobalt, is the Aynak ore body, located about 18 miles (30 kilometers) southeast of Kabul. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the Soviets began development of the mine but it was suspended in 1989 following Soviet withdrawal from the country. The high-grade portion of the total Aynak deposit is estimated at 11.3 million metric tons of copper, worth $102 billion at current market prices.

Afghanistan also has world-class iron ore resources, concentrated in the Haji Gak deposit of Bamiyan Province. Haji Gak has an estimated 2,100 million metric tons of high-grade ore that is 61%-69% iron by weight. At current price levels, this represents a value of $336.8 billion, placing Afghanistan among the top 10 nations worldwide in extractable iron.

Lithium resources in Nuristan Province, which occur as veins, impressed Soviet geoscientists with the amount of hard rock ore (lithium is also mined from brine). Based on USGS estimates, it is a significant but modest resource in today's terms, as exploration for such deposits has increased around the world in the past decade.

Finally, rare earth elements exist in southern Helmand Province. These deposits mainly contain cerium, with smaller amounts of more valuable lanthanum, praseodymium and neodymium, totaling perhaps 1.4 million metric tons. Two of these, praseodymium and neodymium, are at high price levels—more than $45,000 per metric ton—and make exceptional magnets used in motors for hybrid and electric cars, but the abundance of these elements is not large relative to how much other countries have.

Above-ground factors and geopolitics

Mining wisdom holds that what's in the ground is less important than what's above ground. Market realities, security, contract terms, infrastructure and environmental concerns matter more than sheer abundance to whether resources can be developed.

Among these factors, perhaps the most relevant at present is strong global demand for the metals, particularly copper, lithium and rare earth elements, which are essential to the growing markets in renewable energy and electric vehicles.

Whether or not Afghanistan can begin mining these elements will depend on what the new Taliban government does. Under the former Ministry of Mines, a $2.9 billion contract for a portion of the Aynak copper deposit was granted to two state-owned Chinese companies. The 30-year contract signed in 2007 had a high royalty rate by global standards and required that ore smelting and processing be done locally. Other conditions included building a 400-megawatt coal power plant and a railway to the Pakistan border. Also stipulated was that 85%-100% of employees, from skilled labor to managerial personnel, be Afghan nationals within eight years of the date work begins. Though originally agreed to, these terms were later declared onerous by the companies, halting development.

Though roads exist to many ore deposit areas, Afghanistan lacks good-quality roadways, railways and electricity. Mining companies are no stranger to such challenges, yet the situation is heightened in this case by rugged terrain and the landlocked nature of the country. Railways, in particular, would be essential for transporting ore, raw or refined, to foreign markets.

There are also environmental and cultural concerns. Mining can result in major impacts to land and air quality, as well as watersheds—a particular concern in water-poor Afghanistan—if not regulated to best practices. No less, enforcement of such standards is required and has been a problem in many lower-income countries.

Close to the Aynak copper deposit is a large site of Buddhist relics, statues, temples and stupas. There are also Bronze Age mining sites that constitute important archaeological resources. Here, too, no clarity yet exists about how Taliban leaders, who ordered the destruction of the great Buddhist statues at Bamiyan in 2001, might view these sites.

For Afghanistan, its resources could mean a source of long-term foreign investment, skill-building and infrastructure expansion, all essential for a sustainable economy. But a major question is which companies would be involved. Afghanistan is also at the center of geopolitical struggles, involving both India and Pakistan, as well as China, Iran and the U.S. That the Taliban are now in control does not make the country's minerals any less invested with large significance.

Author's note: In 2015, I was the instructor for a task force class in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington that produced a report on Afghanistan's natural resources and the possibility of their acting as a basis for economic development. This article is devoted to the excellent work done by students on that task force.

Afghanistan finds deadly fungal infection in COVID patients

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/08/how-afghanistans-1-trillion-mining.html

 

Lack of global standards for COVID-19 certificates creates 'barrier to their successful implementation'

by University of Exeter

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The lack of global standards for coronavirus certificates is a key barrier to their successful implementation around the world, a new report warns.

Experts have called for widely accepted international standards for documentation which records COVID-19 vaccination and health status, although implementing them quickly will be difficult.

The University of Exeter research calls for policymakers to ensure coronavirus health status certificate providers abide by basic data protection principles, including lawfulness, fairness and transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity and confidentiality, and accountability. It identifies three key barriers to implementation—lack of trust, lack of global standards, and lack of a holistic approach.

The report recommends the certificates are only used during the pandemic, so that their use is discontinued once the WHO declares that COVID-19 is no longer a public health emergency of international concern.

It also says policymakers should ensure that COVID-19 health status certificate providers build data protection into the design of these certificates by default, and that the confidentiality and security of the information collected and processed are maintained. Providers of these certificates should prevent any unauthorized access, accidental loss, damage, or destruction of the data.

The report presents independent research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI)'s rapid response to COVID-19.

The research was led by Dr. Ana Beduschi, who carried out literature reviews and evaluations of primary and secondary sources of law. The research was also informed by twenty semi-structured interviews with technologists and experts in digital identity and certification conducted between December 2020 and March 2021. The study also benefited from the insights and views of experts who participated in two workshops in March 2021 and May 2021.

Dr. Beduschi said: "Focusing only on the technological solutions for COVID-19 health status certificates is not sufficient. As these certificates have a direct impact on people's rights, there is a crucial need to consider the laws and regulations, including those on data privacy and human rights.

"If effectively implemented, COVID-19 health status certificates may contribute to managing the effects of the current pandemic. Yet, their introduction poses significant challenges to data privacy, equality and non-discrimination. The urgency surrounding the adoption of these measures should not lead to governments rolling out COVID-19 health status certificates in haste without the appropriate protection of data privacy and human rights.

"Policymakers must strike an adequate balance between protecting the rights and freedoms of all individuals and safeguarding public interests, while managing the effects of the pandemic."

The report emphasized that COVID-19 health status certificates should be available to all, not only those with high levels of digital literacy, but highlighted the risks of fraud associated with paper-based certificates. The research also underlined the need for secure applications and embedded technologies such as QR codes.

Digital health passports should not be introduced until COVID-19 vaccines are available to all, report warnProvided by University of Exeter 

 

Child care providers vaccinated at higher rates than general population

by Mallory Locklear, Yale University

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Connecticut and Washington recently became the first U.S. states requiring child care providers to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The new policies reflect the essential role child care providers play and their elevated risk of both contracting and transmitting SARS-CoV-2.

Until now, however, the vaccination rate for this critical group has remained unknown. But a new Yale-led study published in Pediatrics found that vaccine uptake among child care providers in the United States was higher than for the general adult population.

A national survey of the child care workforce conducted between May and June of this year found that, among 20,013 respondents, 78.2% were fully vaccinated. During that same time period, just 65% of the general adult population had been fully vaccinated.

"Child care providers are one of the few groups that have intimate interactions with many people on a daily basis, putting them at higher risk of getting and spreading COVID-19," said Walter Gilliam, the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor at the Yale Child Study Center. "Protecting them from COVID-19 is important for their health and the health of the children they care for."

Child care providers are also critical for a healthy economy. "They're the workforce that makes other workforces possible," added Gilliam, senior author of the study. "If they fall ill or if COVID-19 causes child care facilities to shut down, that impacts every working parent relying on that care."

He added: "These findings are promising but show we still have a ways to go when it comes to vaccinating child care providers."

Vaccination rates among child care providers revealed in the survey mirror trends observed throughout the U.S. population. Providers who were younger, had lower income, or were Black reported lower rates of vaccination. Providers who were elderly, had higher incomes, or were Asian-American reported higher rates of vaccination. Geographically, vaccine uptake was lowest in the Mountain West and the South and highest in New England and the Pacific West. Massachusetts had the highest vaccine rate at 89.4%, while Wyoming had the lowest, at just 53.5%.

Vaccination rates also differed across child care settings. Providers who worked in child care centers were more likely to be vaccinated than providers based in home settings.

"This could be due to a number of reasons," said Kavin Patel, lead author of the study and a clinical fellow in infectious diseases at the Yale School of Medicine. "Home-based child care providers are typically responsible for smaller groups of children than those working in centers, so the risk of COVID-19 spread might be perceived as lower. Also, some centers may have required staff vaccination."

Home-based providers may also have received less targeted messaging about COVID-19 vaccination than their center-based counterparts, said Gilliam.

Among the non-vaccinated child care providers, nearly 12% said they were "very likely" or "absolutely certain" to get vaccinated in the future, while over 59% said they were "not likely" to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The most commonly reported reasons for vaccine hesitancy related to fears around vaccine safety.

"These findings show where we need to focus messaging efforts," said Gilliam. "Earlier this year, messaging that highlighted the particular occupational risks for child care providers led to large increases in vaccination rates. We need another round of messaging that emphasizes these risks and reaches the groups with lower vaccination rates."

Parents can help, too, by asking questions about what safety measures their child care providers are taking and how facilities are helping their staff attain vaccines, he said.

Gilliam, Patel, and their colleagues will continue to monitor child care provider vaccination rates. "It will be interesting to see how or if the Delta variant and the return to school affect vaccine uptake in this population," said Patel. 

Easy steps to get your child ready for the COVID-19 vaccine

More information: Kavin M. Patel et al, COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Among US Child Care Providers, Pediatrics (2021). DOI: 10.1542/peds.2021-053813

Journal information: Pediatrics Provided by Yale University 

 

Increased advertising and algorithm changes at Google may make it harder to find what you're looking for

by Mohiuddin Ahmed, Paul Haskell-Dowland, The Conversation

Credit: Shutterstock

Over the past 25 years, the name "Google" has become synonymous with the idea of searching for anything online. In much the same way "to Hoover" means to use a vacuum cleaner, dictionaries have recognized "to Google" as meaning to undertake an online search using any available service.

Former competitors such as AltaVista and AskJeeves are long dead, and existing alternatives such as Bing and DuckDuckGo currently pose little threat to Google's dominance. But shifting our web searching habits to a single supplier has significant risks.

Google also dominates in the web browser market (almost two-thirds of browsers are Chrome) and web advertising (Google Ads has an estimated 29% share of all digital advertising in 2021). This combination of browser, search and advertising has drawn considerable interest from competition and antitrust regulators around the world.

Leaving aside the commercial interests, is Google actually delivering when we Google? Are the search results (which clearly influence the content we consume) giving us the answers we want?

Advertising giant

More than 80% of Alphabet's revenue comes from Google advertising. At the same time, around 85% of the world's search engine activity goes through Google.

Clearly there is significant commercial advantage in selling advertising while at the same time controlling the results of most web searches undertaken around the globe.

This can be seen clearly in search results. Studies have shown internet users are less and less prepared to scroll down the page or spend less time on content below the "fold" (the limit of content on your screen). This makes the space at the top of the search results more and more valuable.

While Google (and indeed many users) might argue that the results are still helpful and save time, it's clear the design of the page and the prominence given to paid adverts will influence behavior. All of this is reinforced by the use of a pay-per-click advertising model which is founded on enticing users to click on adverts.In the example below, you might have to scroll three screens down before you find actual search results rather than paid promotions.

Annoyance

Google's influence expands beyond web search results. More than 2 billion people use the Google-owned YouTube each month (just counting logged-in users), and it is often considered the number one platform for online advertising.

Although YouTube is as ubiquitous to video-sharing as Google is to search, YouTube users have an option to avoid ads: paying for a premium subscription. However, only a minuscule fraction of users take the paid option.

Evolving needs

The complexity (and expectations) of search engines has increased over their lifetime, in line with our dependence on technology.

For example, someone trying to explore a tourist destination may be tempted to search "What should I do to visit the Simpsons Gap".

The Google search result will show a number of results, but from the user perspective the information is distributed across multiple sites. To obtain the desired information users need to visit a number of websites.

Google is working on bringing this information together. The search engine now uses sophisticated "natural language processing" software called BERT, developed in 2018, that tries to identify the intention behind a search, rather than simply searching strings of text. AskJeeves tried something similar in 1997, but the technology is now more advanced.

BERT will soon be succeeded by MUM (Multitask Unified Model), which tries to go a step further and understand the context of a search and provide more refined answers. Google claims MUM may be 1000 times more powerful than BERT, and be able to provide the kind of advice a human expert might for questions without a direct answer.

Are we now locked into Google?

Given the market share and influence Google has in our daily lives, it might seem impossible to think of alternatives. However, Google is not the only show in town. Microsoft's Bing search engine has a modest level of popularity in the United States, although it will struggle to escape the Microsoft brand.

Another option that claims to be free from ads and ensure user privacy, DuckDuckGo, has seen a growing level of interest—perhaps helped through association with the TOR browser project.

While Google may be dominating with its search engine service, it also covers artificial intelligence, healthcare, autonomous vehicles, cloud computing services, computing devices and a plethora of home automation devices. Even if we can move away from Google's grasp in our web browsing activities, there is a whole new range of future challenges for consumers on the horizon.DuckDuckGo search engine increased its traffic by 62% in 2020 as users seek privacy

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.