With the arrival of summer in the northern hemisphere, many people have been fearing that they would be contracted COVID-19 through a mosquito.
In response to the concern, the World Health Organization(WHO) said there was not yet evidence of people getting infected with the novel coronavirus through a mosquito. The virus is mainly spread through respiratory droplets and physical contact – the virus can infect a person through the respiratory droplets of a patient, or touching contaminated objects used by a virus carrier and touching one's eyes, mouth, or nasal mucous membranes.
But we can’t deny the mosquitoes could transmit contagious diseases. We’ll analyze how mosquitoes become the transmitter of diseases. The dengue, for example, this disease results from the transmitting of Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti. The infection source is dengue patients and carriers. Once the asdes drink the blood with the virus, the virus would infect the enterocyte of Aedes, then copy and enter aedes’ whole body. Finally, the sialaden of aedes would be infected. When the Aedes drink other healthy people’s blood, they need to use the saliva to stop blood platelets to make sure they have sufficient blood resources. But this action makes more humans or animals become virus carriers. That’s why many of us are worried.
Mosquitoes drink blood, and blood can transmit almost all diseases. It is no doubt the healthy people would be infected if he is injected with coronavirus in their blood.
So let’s see if mosquitoes also have this ability.
How mosquitoes transmit diseases? There are three stages:
- Mosquitoes drink blood with the virus.
- The virus breed and copy inside the whole mosquito including the saliva.
- The mosquitoes bite the susceptible hosts to transmit the virus.
However, the mosquitoes don’t easily be infected by the novel coronavirus. The researches show the coronavirus only infect vertebrates, mosquitoes are invertebrates as an insect. That means the coronavirus won’t survive inside mosquitoes’ bodies although they drink the blood from the infected patients. But their mouth would catch little amount of virus. According to existing researches, the average blood that each Aedes drink is 1.3570—1.4820mg. And the amount of blood on their mouth is few and far, which is not enough to lead to infection.
Others also ask:” The novel coronavirus can spread through respiratory droplets of a patient, or toughing contaminated objects used by a virus carrier. So, is it possible to be infected if a mosquito had been close to the patients for a while and touch me then?” Don’t worry. The mosquitoes transmit diseases through biting rather than breathing. Even if a mosquito drinking blood with the virus enters a person’s nose or mouth, don’t be afraid.
But we can’t ignore the truth that mosquitoes are the transmitter of other contagious diseases like malaria and dengue fever. Same as mosquitoes, flies are also the transmitter of diseases. Besides guarding against mosquitoes, people should also keep food from flies in summer.
Based on the latest research findings, high temperatures might hinder the transmission of the novel coronavirus but will not completely kill it. The current global outbreak of COVID-19 has shown that high temperatures will not stop the transmission, as COVID-19 has already spread to countries with higher temperatures, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and nearly all African countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) had also made the assessment that COVID-19 could spread to regions with high temperatures and humidity. All of us have to remain on alert even the epidemic is better than it was in your country. The resumption of virus is little by little, not all at once.
