I was busy smashing mosquitos in my room. The latest victim had its stomach full of blood and made me wonder, are all those blood mine?
On a second thought, what if the blood belong to someone who has AIDS? A quick search online cleared my doubts.
The article “Why Mosquitoes Cannot Transmit AIDS“ is written by Wayne J. Crans, Associate Research Professor in Entomology from The State University of New Jersey.
Let me quote the key parts.
1. Mosquitoes Digest the Virus that Causes AIDS
When a mosquito transmits a disease agent from one person to another, the infectious agent must remain alive inside the mosquito until transfer is completed……. Successful mosquito-borne parasites have a number of interesting ways to avoid being treated as food. Some are refractory to the digestive enzymes inside the mosquito’s stomach; most bore their way out of the stomach as quickly as possible to avoid the powerful digestive enzymes that would quickly eliminate their existence…… Studies with HIV clearly show that the virus responsible for the AIDS infection is regarded as food to the mosquito and is digested along with the blood meal. As a result, mosquitoes that ingest HIV-infected blood digest that blood within 1-2 days and completely destroy any virus particles that could potentially produce a new infection. Since the virus does not survive to reproduce and invade the salivary glands, the mechanism that most mosquito-borne parasites use to get from one host to the next is not possible with HIV.
2. Mosquitoes Do Not Ingest Enough HIV Particles to Transmit AIDS by Contamination
……Transfer by mouthpart contamination requires sufficient infectious particles to initiate a new infection……HIV circulates at very low levels in the blood - well below the levels of any of the known mosquito-borne diseases…… 70 to 80% of HIV-infected persons have undetectable levels of virus particles in their blood. ….. a mosquito that is interrupted while feeding on an HIV carrier circulating 1000 units of HIV has a 1:10 million probability of injecting a single unit of HIV to an AIDS-free recipient. In laymen’s terms, an AIDS-free individual would have to be bitten by 10 million mosquitoes that had begun feeding on an AIDS carrier to receive a single unit of HIV from contaminated mosquito mouthparts……In short, mechanical transmission of AIDS by HIV-contaminated mosquitoes appears to be well beyond the limits of probability……
3. Mosquitoes Are Not Flying Hypodermic Needles
Many people think of mosquitoes as tiny, flying hypodermic syringes, and if hypodermic needles can successfully transmit HIV from one individual to another then mosquitoes ought to be able to do the same…… Most people have heard that mosquitoes regurgitate saliva before they feed, but are unaware that the food canal and salivary canal are separate passageways in the mosquito. The mosquito’s feeding apparatus is an extremely complicated structure that is totally unlike the crude single-bore syringe. Unlike a syringe, the mosquito delivers salivary fluid through one passage and draws blood up another. As a result, the food canal is not flushed out like a used needle, and blood flow is always unidirectional. The mechanics involved in mosquito feeding are totally unlike the mechanisms employed by the drug user’s needles. In short, mosquitoes are not flying hypodermic needles and a mosquito that disgorges saliva into your body is not flushing out the remnants of its last blood meal.
Okay, feel free to read the original article if you have time. Hope this is helpful.
*Back to mosquito smashing*
