MOSQUITOES AND DISEASE

Girls Bite

Female mosquitoes bite humans to ingest blood. They are most active around dawn and dusk when temperatures are moderate ( 60°- 100° ) and winds are calm. When temperatures near 100° mosquitoes take cover in foliage. In her lifetime a female mosquito can lay eggs 3-4 times with as many as 300-400 eggs each time! These eggs are activated by water and can lay dormant for years.

Why We Itch

When a mosquito takes blood from a human they leave their own saliva behind in the wound. The body responds by an allergic reaction causing swelling at the point of the bite.

Mosquitoes not born with disease

Mosquitoes are not infected with a disease at birth. In order to carry a disease a mosquito must bite another mammal with infected blood. If that same mosquito bites a person, that disease is transmitted through the saliva to the person.

Diseases

Over one million people die from mosquito-borne diseases every year. The most publicized disease carried by mosquitoes is the West Nile virus. Since the appearance of West Nile virus in the Americas in 1999, there have been over fifteen thousand cases reported in the United States alone. Symptoms of West Nile virus are flu like and the virus is fatal. Symptoms usually appear within two weeks of a bite. The second best known disease carried by mosquitoes is Malaria. The World Health Organization reports as many as five hundred million cases a year. Symptoms are also flu like however malaria has a high mortality rate. Malaria is common in tropical regions especially central and South America. Another tropical disease carried by mosquitoes is Dengue fever. Dengue fever sets in within two weeks of a bite and also has flu like symptoms. What makes dengue so dangerous is the possibility of developing dengue hemorrhagic fever. Like Ebola, dengue hemorrhagic fever is extremely fatal. Yellow fever is also a potentially fatal tropical disease with symptoms appearing within a week of a bite.