If there is one thing most of us can agree on, it’s that mosquitos are one of the most vile creatures in the animal kingdom. Mosquito breeds are ruthlessly efficient at spreading potentially deadly diseases including dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and Australia’s Ross River virus. It can carry the parasite that causes malaria and implant that into a human host. Mosquitos can be such efficient disease carriers that indirectly, they can cause over half a million deaths every year (via The Conversation). So with summertime just around the corner, it’s likely a question you’ve wondered: Could mosquitoes become another conduit through which the coronavirus can spread?
In The Conversation, Principal Hospital Scientist at the University of Sydney Cameron Webb explains that mosquitoes bite warm-blooded animals like us because they need the nutrition found in our blood to nurture their eggs. But to be able to infect someone, mosquitos have to first bite another animal — or another person — that has the disease. In this way, they can transmit many diseases; but for what it’s worth, mosquitoes can’t transmit many viruses including those responsible for HIV and Ebola. Webb also says that while there is still much to learn about COVID-19, it is unlikely that it can be transmitted by mosquitoes either.
There have been no reports of mosquitos spreading COVID-19
Webb echoes what experts have been saying about the new coronavirus: That it is passed around by human transmission, and through the droplets an infected person produces when he or she sneezes or coughs. A person can also be infected by touching something contaminated by a sick person’s droplets. And while the coronavirus has been found in blood samples, Webb says evidence suggests that mosquitoes cannot transmit the virus.
“There are no reports of any spread of coronavirus to humans by mosquitoes,” infectious disease expert Mary Schmidt told Fox News. “If this was a route of transmission, we would have seen it in the Middle East, where the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) caused by the coronavirus has been present for six years.”
However, authorities say they will continue to monitor the mosquito situation as the summer draws closer to make sure nothing changes.
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