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Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

337 points by gregd 6y ago

madengr 6y ago
Hydroxychloroquine has been used as a malaria preventative for 60 years. Now it is suddenly unsafe?
- hobs 6y ago
  Malarone is also a malaria preventative, and I personally had a psychotic break while taking it, it took 8 men to hold me down and strap me a bed for two days until I came to. Seems pretty harmless I guess?
  - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
    If you don't mind, could you say a bit more about the psychotic break? The closest thing from my own experience is being told that I thrashed around a lot while coming out of post-surgery anesthesia, but I have no memory of it.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      General anesthesia often has this effect on both sides, because muscle tone is lost late in induction and regained early in recovery. If you've been surprised to find yourself wrapped snugly in a sheet just before being put under, this is why. It's not related to the sort of mental effects of antimalarials mentioned in GP's comment.
    - hobs 6y ago
      I remember having a sundowner, talking with my family and slowly getting more and more irritated about some minor conversational bit someone said. I clearly remember starting to get louder and more aggressive and then I blacked out. I woke up in a pool of my own sweat several days later wondering what had happened. People talked to me about what happened I piece together bits and pieces floating around in a red haze and having a human pile on top of me. In retrospect the weirdest part was how readily they accepted I was sane again.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    The disturbing thing is compared to some of the alternatives which can stop breathing in some people that is safer.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    The antimalarial prophylaxis which is infamous for mental-health disturbances is lariam (mefloquine). Are you sure you weren't taking that instead? When malarone appeared on the market, one of its big selling points was that it does not have the drawbacks of lariam (or doxycycline).
    - hobs 6y ago
      You know, I am not 100% sure, the time beforehand is pretty foggy and they both have an m name it makes me question the memory... it was many years ago.
- nunodonato 6y ago
  we live in times of extreme double-standards. no point in discussing it or will be downvoted and criticized to oblivion
  - melling 6y ago
    No, malaria drugs have been long known to have side-effects. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/19772-hydroxychloroquine-tablets https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/19772-hydroxychl... Here’s a 2013 NIH article about a rare heart condition. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3760572/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3760572/
- nanodeath 6y ago
  I can't tell if this is a troll comment. The article makes no mention of hydroxychloroquine.
  - madengr 6y ago
    Well it's a troll article. I might as well post an article about lead paint being dangerous.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  I don't know where that was mentioned in the article, so I think we're going off topic, but isn't the use of cures weighed against their efficacy and danger? No one would suggest chemotherapy for a cold. Hydroxycholorquine has proven to be effective against Malaria, which is terrible and can be deadly, but proven ineffective and in fact can make worse COVID, so it's not recommended to be used there. Makes sense to me.
  - madengr 6y ago
    It's been shown to have no benefit when someone is near-dead from COVID. Don't 80% of people on ventilators die anyway? So ventilators have no benefit. From what I have been reading, the drug does have benefit when used as a prophylactic, in combination with zinc. Of course we now have politicized medicine due to the fact Trump is taking it, and whatever Trump does must be de-facto bad. Now we have countries banning it's use, because of the WHO, who also said masks are useless.
    - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
      Given that the entire world is studying these drugs, and many nations have now suspended their research, I don't think you can chalk it up to a single person, unless you're assuming the entire world is defining their own medical and research policies based upon Twitter outrage.
      - lenkite 6y ago
        The WHO is not advising stopping all HCQ trials but has only dropped HCQ from the Solidarity Trial, and that many prophylaxis trials using HCQ are ongoing or about to start. https://www.nxg.news/2020/05/26/26496/coronavirus-no-who-bar-on-india-testing-hcq-as-a-preventive-drug-says-who-chief-scientist-soumya-swaminathan/ https://www.nxg.news/2020/05/26/26496/coronavirus-no-who-bar...
    - kenjackson 6y ago
      Is there a peer reviewed study of this in a top journal? Someone tried to send me a link from AAPS and I was like, really...
- ebg13 6y ago
  Chemotherapy has been used as a cancer treatment for decades as well. There is zero doubt that chemo is extremely harmful to the body even as it destroys cancer cells. Sometimes you take one thing that's unsafe because something else is more unsafe. That doesn't make the thing safe.
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  Hydroxychloroquine has always been unsafe. It's just that in some situations, the risk of malaria is more unsafe.
  - ping_pong 6y ago
    Wrong. Hydroxychloroquine is safer than acetaminophen. Chloroquine has much higher side effects, but they different drugs, in the same family.
    - kerkeslager 6y ago
      "Common side effects may include vomiting, headache, changes in vision, and muscle weakness. Severe side effects may include allergic reactions, vision problems, and heart problems." Sure, these side effects may be uncommon, but they're a hell of a lot more common than they are if you don't take hydroxychloroquine. Incidentally, it's an open secret that a lot of the popular NSAIDs wouldn't be OTC if they were discovered today. Specifically because NSAIDs aren't just "safe", over the counter dosages are quite low--low enough that they're ineffective in many cases, which is why the same NSAIDs are prescribed at orders of magnitude higher doses. There's historical precedent for "safe" drugs being problematic during a pandemic: aspirin poisoning was a significant cause of death during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.
      - ping_pong 6y ago
        Yes, so what you said didn't contradict anything I said. Hydroxycloroquine is safer than acetaminophen which is available openly at doses that can destroy the liver. Here is what the CDC says about hydroxychloroquine. To call it "unsafe" is ridiculous and spreading misinformation. Hydroxychloroquine is a relatively well tolerated medicine. The most common adverse reactions reported are stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, and headache. These side effects can often be lessened by taking hydroxychloroquine with food.Hydroxychloroquine may also cause itching in some people. All medicines may have some side effects. Minor side effects such as nausea, occasional vomiting, or diarrhea usually do not require stopping the antimalarial drug. If you cannot tolerate your antimalarial drug, see your health care provider; other antimalarial drugs are available
xenocyon 6y ago
This is a strangely worded title: why not say "mosquitoes" instead of "tiny insects" since that is what is being referred to? Insects as a whole are of crucial planetary importance.
- creaghpatr 6y ago
  Agree, the HN header should be updated. No other insects mentioned.
  - gregd 6y ago
    I updated it and apologized for the error.
- throwanem 6y ago
  If we really want to be accurate, why not talk about the parasites actually to blame, which the mosquitoes incidentally transmit? I carry no brief for the little flying bloodsuckers, but I also don't want to find out what happens to ecosystems when the many animals that prey on mosquitoes and their larvae are suddenly deprived of them.
- leeoniya 6y ago
  > This is a strangely worded title clickbait
- gregd 6y ago
  Sorry. When I cut/paste the subtitle of the article on submission, I thought I grabbed the entire subtext. Not sure how that happened, but I've edited the title.
jonshariat 6y ago
This is why Verily's https://debug.com/ https://debug.com/ project is so interesting. The idea is to create modified mosquitoes that can't bite or breed and release them to "breed" with the general populous thus neutralizing them.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  Another way we can control mosquitoes is by making sure the native bird populations are healthy. Where I live tree and bank swallows eat tons and tons of mosquitoes and other bugs every year which helps control the population. I wouldn't recommend releasing these birds elsewhere because they may not have any natural predators but surely where there are tons of mosquitoes there are also predators of mosquitoes as well. Otherwise this reminds me of well-meaning efforts to control erosion by planting Kudzu or Himalayan Blackberry everywhere. Ultimately they just become an invasive species. And I could also see eradicating mosquitoes as removing a food species for many other animals. This is a really bad idea.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    Is this true? I recall looking into this and finding that swallows, bats, and other "mosquito predators" don't put a dent in mosquito populations (mosquitoes are numerous and only account for a negligible percentage of these predators' diets).
    - colechristensen 6y ago
      The right question is "How significant is this?" because of course predators have an effect on prey population dynamics, but the question is what effect and how big. >We conclude that predators and parasites have a limited but significant effect on overall mosquito populations, and their role should be considered when implementing habitat management, mosquito control and when modeling mosquito population dynamics. From a study http://e-m-b.org/sites/e-m-b.org/files/European_Mosquito_Bulletin_Publications811/EMB25/EMB25_1.pdf http://e-m-b.org/sites/e-m-b.org/files/European_Mosquito_Bul...
asdf21 6y ago
Way more than that if you count diseases from ticks.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Koshkin 6y ago
To put this in a perspective, 1 Mosquito 1,000,000 2 Human 475,000 3 Snake 50,000 4 Dog 25,000 5 Tsetse Fly 10,000 6 Assassin Bug 10,000 7 Freshwater Snail 10,000 8 Ascaris Roundworm 2,500 9 Tapeworm 2,000 10 Crocodile 1,000 11 Hippopotamus 500 12 Elephant 100 13 Lion 100 14 Wolf 10 15 Shark 10 https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-most-humans.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-mo...
- creaghpatr 6y ago
  I had never heard of Assassin bug but apparently they are all over North America. https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Assassin-Bug https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?... Wonder if those Murder Hornets will make next year's list?
  - wetmore 6y ago
    When I was a kid at camp we used to catch them and make them fight other bugs. Those things are creepy.
  - spijdar 6y ago
    My understanding from (very briefly) reading about the insect family Reduviidae is some species are parasitic and spread deadly pathogens much the same way mosquitoes do. It's not the insects themselves killing people, but diseases like Chagas disease (Triatominae is a subfamily of Reduviidae "Assassin Bug"). [1] [1] https://www.paho.org/en/topics/chagas-disease https://www.paho.org/en/topics/chagas-disease
  - the_af 6y ago
    The assassin bug is called "vinchuca" in my country, Argentina, and it's a real problem here. There are ways to combat the bug, but once you catch the Chagas disease, there's no cure and you have to live with it. There is only symptomatic treatment as far as I know.
  - 6y ago
mac01021 6y ago
Just as a curiosity, humans kill hundreds of trillions of insects annually. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-insects-die-from-people-stepping-on-them-daily https://www.quora.com/How-many-insects-die-from-people-stepp...
- dheera 6y ago
  Insects, however, reproduce so much that without population control, the ecosystem would be in imbalance very quickly, and they can't be educated to have less children. Insects were "designed" into the system such that a large number of them are expected to die. I wouldn't be surprised if birds and spiders kill far more insects than people.
  - mac01021 6y ago
    They probably do if you count only humans directly squashing the insects with their hands/feet/cars. If you count things like pollution, pesticides, land use, they absolutely don't. Insect populations have been reduced to a fraction of their former size over the last few decades due to human activity.
- mindfulhack 6y ago
  I appreciate that type of thinking. I also think that we desire so much to modify or eradicate other species, but we haven't thought about our own species' overpopulation, which is taxing the planet dearly. Not saying people should die, but that in the same breath we have to think about sustainability from that angle too. We're producing too many new humans, and it's lowering the quality of life for both our species and others...
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  If you include all human activity - like home building and farming, it's probably in the quadrillions.
ardy42 6y ago
Needs a (2017). This looks like the publish date: > 18.08.2017
ahelwer 6y ago
I grew up in Manitoba so have a very healthy hatred of mosquitoes - 50 of them once followed me into a car during the <1s window of me opening & closing the door (I know because I killed them all before driving) - but anyone leaning toward the idea we should exterminate mosquitoes is incredibly reckless. Ecological systems don't shift slowly, they collapse all at once. Their continued existence is predicated on feedback loops of mind-boggling complexity. To put it another way: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1120044775024013312 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1120044775024013312
- dmix 6y ago
  > anyone leaning toward the idea we should exterminate mosquitoes Is this actually a thing?
  - ahelwer 6y ago
    Of course it is, very popular among the Thought Leader circuit: https://www.sciencealert.com/bill-melinda-gates-funding-scientists-to-engineer-malaria-killing-mosquito https://www.sciencealert.com/bill-melinda-gates-funding-scie...
    - bamboozled 6y ago
      I love this, "Though Leader circuit", been looking for this term for a while!
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      Malaria and dengue are only carried by certain mosquito species. Suggestions to eliminate mosquitos through gene therapy almost always concern those specific species, not the relatively harmless (yet very annoying) mosquitos of the global north.
    - graeme 6y ago
      Isn’t that plan only to eliminate the specific species responsible for disease carrying? There are many mosquitos, the mosquito they’re targeting is just one.
paulorlando 6y ago
This is a look into mosquito extirpation programs and what happens when they go wrong: https://unintendedconsequenc.es/more-on-mosquitoes-new-data/ https://unintendedconsequenc.es/more-on-mosquitoes-new-data/
clairity 6y ago
700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag: why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.
- optimiz3 6y ago
  > why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? Probably because 700k/year is globally, while the US alone has suffered 100k deaths in 3 months.
  - clairity 6y ago
    currently ~350K global deaths for covid, in 6 months, since december.
    - thawaway1837 6y ago
      In about 3 months. For a disease that was growing exponentially before action was taken and even now is only just stopped growing in countries where action was taken. And no mosquito outbreak has caused entire hospital systems to collapse in various parts of the world.
  - jakeogh 6y ago
    https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-pneumonia-deaths-2008-2015.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-pn...
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I'm of the impression that in March and perhaps even in April "experts" (whoever they are) thought the US alone could see death tolls in the millions?
  - 6y ago
condesising 6y ago
IIRC Weren’t they genetically modified mosquitoes to stop their spread? I guess I’m curious at what point would the Chi turn and we would gain control over the mosquito population?
dean 6y ago
According to the book "The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy C. Winegard, the mosquito has killed an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion people that have ever lived. (Not sure how those numbers were determined.)
- gxqoz 6y ago
  This book is in a genre I like (microhistories) but I found it pretty dull reading. It's basically a very superficial history of "the world" (mainly Western Europe) that posits malaria to be the cause of pretty much every world event. I'm sure there's some truth to this, but the plodding military metaphors and oversimplifications really started to wear on me. I haven't read it, but a recent review (https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n11/steven-shapin/drain-the-swamps https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n11/steven-shapin/drain-the-..., possibly behind a paywall) suggested Sonia Shah's The Fever to be a better book on the topic.
- bsytko 6y ago
  Curious as to why we haven't evolved tougher skin then. Mosquito resistant skin would appear to be a trait that would allow you to live longer.
  - acdha 6y ago
    Evolution doesn’t care about longevity or quality of life: it’s all about passing genes on. If some kind of mosquito resistance didn’t lead to increasing the number of children you have there’s not going to be much selection pressure for it.
    - netsec_burn 6y ago
      Would it not, if the individuals that are not bearing the anti-mosquito skin die off?
      - acdha 6y ago
        Possibly but it’s a complicated trade off: first, there’s the question of how much advantage it could confer – if young people get through a disease and the deaths are mostly old people who are past reproductive age, there might not be enough advantage (especially since humans are social - a 10 year old losing a parent is a tragedy but probably not fatal if you live with older siblings, relatives, or a tribe). Depending on what people are dying of and when, this might not be enough to select for. The second big factor is what it would need to develop. This isn’t a directed process - something needs to confer a benefit of some sort early to be selected for, not just after hundreds of generations. If you’re talking about a major change like completely changing mammalian skin, that sounds very complicated compared to other things (such as improved immune function for the specific disease killing people), and there’s an arms race if all you’re doing is selecting for mosquitoes with better bites which might not be winnable. Finally, there’s the question of downsides: do the mutations producing this leave you more vulnerable to other conditions, less likely to attract mates, etc. If that tough skin costs more to grow, you’re paying the cost upfront even if you’re living somewhere without a huge mosquito population, so it might be maladaptive for too much of the total population to maintain. The downsides discussion is particularly relevant in the case of sickle cell anemia, which is believed to be a side effect of an evolved malaria resistance – beneficial if you live in an area where it’s common but a net loss if you do not: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20450-how-sickle-cell-carriers-fend-off-malaria/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20450-how-sickle-cell...
yboris 6y ago
If you want to reduce the number, consider donating money to the cost-effective Against Malaria Foundation https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf - review by GiveWell, and independent charity evaluator $2 donation results in 1 net that lasts 3-4 years protecting 1.8 people on average from malaria $3
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
So, Covid is on track to beat this, sadly.
- tempestn 6y ago
  Yes, but mosquitos kill that many every single year. Look at the reaction to COVID-19 compared to the amount of effort going into eliminating mosquito-borne disease. There's certainly some, but it's far from the mobilization we see when a calamity on this scale hits rich countries.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Maybe that's cause-and-effect turned around? We stifled our economy and mobilize a million researchers, because we can afford to and have the will. It'll cost us in the end. What do folks in malaria country do? Scavenge their childrens' mosquito nets to catch fish etc. Reject modern medicine and go to the local quack. Foul their water supplies and poach their endangered species. I know, we can have all the morals we can afford. But some large-scale coordinated actions require a populace that is educated and willing.
    - djsumdog 6y ago
      It's because SARS-CoV-2 is new, and new things scare us more than things we know. This entire thing has been an exercises in how people fail to properly evaluate risk ... on a global scale .. leading to economic devastation. Wendover did a great video on risk recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtX-Ibi21tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtX-Ibi21tU
      - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        Except this risk is real. The more we learn of it, the more significant it becomes. Fortunately with study we will beat it. But to laugh at the risk of Covid is foolhardy.
  - andarleen 6y ago
shoulderfake 6y ago
fucking snakes, hate em
cryptica 6y ago
Mosquitoes are killing people by the hundreds of thousands! Let's shut down the economy and do another round of corporate bailouts!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
activatedgeek 6y ago
It is uneasy to read this number and I don't get the full picture here. 1. What is the distribution of this number across geographical regions? Is it uniformly spread across all regions? Are some regions outliers? 2. The distribution of this number over time of the year in every geographic region is perhaps an interesting thing to look at for short-term solutions.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
When I lived in Africa -especially Nigeria- there were these swarms of mosquitoes that could drain half a pint of blood in a minute or two. My sister got caught in one of them. Not fun. She was covered in the little bastards.
- foobiekr 6y ago
  One time, while hiking to go bass fishing in the high Uintas, I got attacked by a swarm of mosquitos so insane that they were trying to bite me through my shirt, through my shorts, my face was covered and one of the little bastards managed on land on my cornea. Nightmarish.
eruci 6y ago
1. Stupidity - More than the rest combined.
bradam 6y ago
One of my classmates came back from Africa to Europe this March without any symptoms. 10 days later she got high fever, dizziness, and unfortunately she could not even recognise her family. Everyone thought its COVID, and doctors recommended her to stay home to not spread the "virus". Unfortunately when she got the the hospital, the diagnostics was too late to and she died in malaria 1,5 days later. Please beware of this infection and get the medication even if it has strong side effects.
- bsanr2 6y ago
  Where in Africa?
  - HappyDreamer 6y ago
    And is it okay if I ask how old was she? / are you? I feel sad to hear
- grawprog 6y ago
  Makes you wonder how many people have actually died so far this way. Being told to stay home and not spread covid, meanwhile something else is actually terribly wrong.
  - freedomben 6y ago
    It's terrifying. A friend of a friend of my wife just lost her baby. It was something that would have been easily seen in a routine screening, but because of COVID the OB/GYN wasn't having patients come to the office. It's heart breaking.
    - wolco 6y ago
      Are you saying she wouldn't have lost the baby if she had a routine screen or it would have given her the ability to deal with the issue a litle bit easier by planning a dnc? I've been part of many miscarriages and doctors can tell you something is wrong but rarely can they fix anything before 12 weeks.
nutbutter 6y ago
"The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy Winegard is an excellent read on the topic of the Mosquito. I'm paraphrasing, but I think he mentions that, of all the humans that have ever lived, the mosquito accounts for half of their deaths.
trianglem 6y ago
Also ticks, please can we lump them in with the mosquito genocide.
dade_ 6y ago
Or poverty. Basic healthcare, mosquito nets and dealing with standing water would probably eliminate the majority of these deaths without killing a single mosquito.
pretzel_boss 6y ago
Malaria is a parasite isn't it? Wouldn't that mean that Malaria is killing that many people and the actual numbers are lower? If we are including diseases why not count bats?
atlantacrackers 6y ago
Quick - lock it down. Double unemployment payments. Wait it out in your basement with the light out.
peter_d_sherman 6y ago
>"But the deadliest animal in the world, in terms of how many people it kills every year, is by far the mosquito. As nicely illustrated in an infographic by gatesnotes, mosquitoes kill at least 725,000 persons every year" And yet, we never seem to hear this fact on the News... Yet we do get stories of the form "X killed Y people", where X is some person/group/phenomenon, and Y < 725,000... And usually, Y is not just less, but several orders of magnitude less -- than 725,000... Also... if you happen to leave a window open at night (accidentally, not intentionally, I might add!), and a mosquito should happen to get in -- does that make you an "accessory to murder" ? ?
- shlant 6y ago
  "And yet, we never seem to hear this fact on the News..." Most likely because A. it disproportionally impacts poorer people in far-off countries and B. It's harder to sell as an enemy/scapegoat compared to other humans/groups/foods/illnesses
- acdha 6y ago
  > And yet, we never seem to hear this fact on the News... Not sure where you get your news but I’ve heard this mentioned regularly on NPR in coverage about the impacts of climate change, outbreaks, programs testing things like the genetically-engineered sterile mosquito releases, and local programs which are trying to reduce it even if it’s not a high cause of death in the United States. Remember when Zika got heavy coverage?
richardw 6y ago
I think it would take a lot of mosquitoes to take down a human. > True, this tiny insect does not do the job on its own. What makes it so dangerous is its capacity to transmit viruses or other parasites that cause devastating diseases. If you catch Covid-19 from a kiss, we don’t say the other person killed you. We firmly blame the disease not the person who transmits it. “Well your honor, Sally didn’t do it on her own, it was her capacity to transmit viruses or other parasites. But mostly her.” These all seem communicable, but we don’t blame humans: “Lower respiratory infections remained the most deadly communicable disease, causing 3.0 million deaths worldwide in 2016. The death rate from diarrhoeal diseases decreased by almost 1 million between 2000 and 2016, but still caused 1.4 million deaths in 2016. Similarly, the number of tuberculosis deaths decreased during the same period, but is still among the top 10 causes with a death toll of 1.3 million. HIV/AIDS is no longer among the world’s top 10 causes of death, having killed 1.0 million people in 2016 compared with 1.5 million in 2000.” https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-... Yes if you infect someone intentionally that’s different, but the mosquito isn’t trying to kill you. From the article: > (humans by the way are second behind the mosquito, causing 475,000 deaths every year) If it’s not humans killing when we transmit, then it’s not mosquitoes. If the transmitter is involved then humans crush mosquitoes.
- CPUstring 6y ago
  Mosquitos transmit and incubate malaria. You don't get malaria from hanging out with a person with it, you get it from getting bit by a mosquito that has previously bitten a person with malaria. [0] Given that the two are intrinsically related, it makes little difference when having a shallow discussion to make the distinction. [0]https://healthclinics.superdrug.com/is-malaria-contagious/ https://healthclinics.superdrug.com/is-malaria-contagious/
tim333 6y ago
Not being a fan of mosquitoes or malaria I wouldn't mind giving gene drive a go https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive-mosquitoes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive-mosqu...

337 points by gregd 6y ago

madengr 6y ago

Hydroxychloroquine has been used as a malaria preventative for 60 years. Now it is suddenly unsafe?

hobs 6y ago
Malarone is also a malaria preventative, and I personally had a psychotic break while taking it, it took 8 men to hold me down and strap me a bed for two days until I came to. Seems pretty harmless I guess?
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  If you don't mind, could you say a bit more about the psychotic break? The closest thing from my own experience is being told that I thrashed around a lot while coming out of post-surgery anesthesia, but I have no memory of it.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    General anesthesia often has this effect on both sides, because muscle tone is lost late in induction and regained early in recovery. If you've been surprised to find yourself wrapped snugly in a sheet just before being put under, this is why. It's not related to the sort of mental effects of antimalarials mentioned in GP's comment.
  - hobs 6y ago
    I remember having a sundowner, talking with my family and slowly getting more and more irritated about some minor conversational bit someone said. I clearly remember starting to get louder and more aggressive and then I blacked out. I woke up in a pool of my own sweat several days later wondering what had happened. People talked to me about what happened I piece together bits and pieces floating around in a red haze and having a human pile on top of me. In retrospect the weirdest part was how readily they accepted I was sane again.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  The disturbing thing is compared to some of the alternatives which can stop breathing in some people that is safer.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  The antimalarial prophylaxis which is infamous for mental-health disturbances is lariam (mefloquine). Are you sure you weren't taking that instead? When malarone appeared on the market, one of its big selling points was that it does not have the drawbacks of lariam (or doxycycline).
  - hobs 6y ago
    You know, I am not 100% sure, the time beforehand is pretty foggy and they both have an m name it makes me question the memory... it was many years ago.
nunodonato 6y ago
we live in times of extreme double-standards. no point in discussing it or will be downvoted and criticized to oblivion
- melling 6y ago
  No, malaria drugs have been long known to have side-effects. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/19772-hydroxychloroquine-tablets https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/19772-hydroxychl... Here’s a 2013 NIH article about a rare heart condition. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3760572/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3760572/
nanodeath 6y ago
I can't tell if this is a troll comment. The article makes no mention of hydroxychloroquine.
- madengr 6y ago
  Well it's a troll article. I might as well post an article about lead paint being dangerous.
SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
I don't know where that was mentioned in the article, so I think we're going off topic, but isn't the use of cures weighed against their efficacy and danger? No one would suggest chemotherapy for a cold. Hydroxycholorquine has proven to be effective against Malaria, which is terrible and can be deadly, but proven ineffective and in fact can make worse COVID, so it's not recommended to be used there. Makes sense to me.
- madengr 6y ago
  It's been shown to have no benefit when someone is near-dead from COVID. Don't 80% of people on ventilators die anyway? So ventilators have no benefit. From what I have been reading, the drug does have benefit when used as a prophylactic, in combination with zinc. Of course we now have politicized medicine due to the fact Trump is taking it, and whatever Trump does must be de-facto bad. Now we have countries banning it's use, because of the WHO, who also said masks are useless.
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    Given that the entire world is studying these drugs, and many nations have now suspended their research, I don't think you can chalk it up to a single person, unless you're assuming the entire world is defining their own medical and research policies based upon Twitter outrage.
    - lenkite 6y ago
      The WHO is not advising stopping all HCQ trials but has only dropped HCQ from the Solidarity Trial, and that many prophylaxis trials using HCQ are ongoing or about to start. https://www.nxg.news/2020/05/26/26496/coronavirus-no-who-bar-on-india-testing-hcq-as-a-preventive-drug-says-who-chief-scientist-soumya-swaminathan/ https://www.nxg.news/2020/05/26/26496/coronavirus-no-who-bar...
  - kenjackson 6y ago
    Is there a peer reviewed study of this in a top journal? Someone tried to send me a link from AAPS and I was like, really...
ebg13 6y ago
Chemotherapy has been used as a cancer treatment for decades as well. There is zero doubt that chemo is extremely harmful to the body even as it destroys cancer cells. Sometimes you take one thing that's unsafe because something else is more unsafe. That doesn't make the thing safe.
kerkeslager 6y ago
Hydroxychloroquine has always been unsafe. It's just that in some situations, the risk of malaria is more unsafe.
- ping_pong 6y ago
  Wrong. Hydroxychloroquine is safer than acetaminophen. Chloroquine has much higher side effects, but they different drugs, in the same family.
  - kerkeslager 6y ago
    "Common side effects may include vomiting, headache, changes in vision, and muscle weakness. Severe side effects may include allergic reactions, vision problems, and heart problems." Sure, these side effects may be uncommon, but they're a hell of a lot more common than they are if you don't take hydroxychloroquine. Incidentally, it's an open secret that a lot of the popular NSAIDs wouldn't be OTC if they were discovered today. Specifically because NSAIDs aren't just "safe", over the counter dosages are quite low--low enough that they're ineffective in many cases, which is why the same NSAIDs are prescribed at orders of magnitude higher doses. There's historical precedent for "safe" drugs being problematic during a pandemic: aspirin poisoning was a significant cause of death during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.
    - ping_pong 6y ago
      Yes, so what you said didn't contradict anything I said. Hydroxycloroquine is safer than acetaminophen which is available openly at doses that can destroy the liver. Here is what the CDC says about hydroxychloroquine. To call it "unsafe" is ridiculous and spreading misinformation. Hydroxychloroquine is a relatively well tolerated medicine. The most common adverse reactions reported are stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, and headache. These side effects can often be lessened by taking hydroxychloroquine with food.Hydroxychloroquine may also cause itching in some people. All medicines may have some side effects. Minor side effects such as nausea, occasional vomiting, or diarrhea usually do not require stopping the antimalarial drug. If you cannot tolerate your antimalarial drug, see your health care provider; other antimalarial drugs are available

xenocyon 6y ago

This is a strangely worded title: why not say "mosquitoes" instead of "tiny insects" since that is what is being referred to? Insects as a whole are of crucial planetary importance.

creaghpatr 6y ago
Agree, the HN header should be updated. No other insects mentioned.
- gregd 6y ago
  I updated it and apologized for the error.
throwanem 6y ago
If we really want to be accurate, why not talk about the parasites actually to blame, which the mosquitoes incidentally transmit? I carry no brief for the little flying bloodsuckers, but I also don't want to find out what happens to ecosystems when the many animals that prey on mosquitoes and their larvae are suddenly deprived of them.
leeoniya 6y ago
> This is a strangely worded title clickbait
gregd 6y ago
Sorry. When I cut/paste the subtitle of the article on submission, I thought I grabbed the entire subtext. Not sure how that happened, but I've edited the title.

jonshariat 6y ago

This is why Verily's https://debug.com/ https://debug.com/ project is so interesting. The idea is to create modified mosquitoes that can't bite or breed and release them to "breed" with the general populous thus neutralizing them.

jschwartzi 6y ago
Another way we can control mosquitoes is by making sure the native bird populations are healthy. Where I live tree and bank swallows eat tons and tons of mosquitoes and other bugs every year which helps control the population. I wouldn't recommend releasing these birds elsewhere because they may not have any natural predators but surely where there are tons of mosquitoes there are also predators of mosquitoes as well. Otherwise this reminds me of well-meaning efforts to control erosion by planting Kudzu or Himalayan Blackberry everywhere. Ultimately they just become an invasive species. And I could also see eradicating mosquitoes as removing a food species for many other animals. This is a really bad idea.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  Is this true? I recall looking into this and finding that swallows, bats, and other "mosquito predators" don't put a dent in mosquito populations (mosquitoes are numerous and only account for a negligible percentage of these predators' diets).
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    The right question is "How significant is this?" because of course predators have an effect on prey population dynamics, but the question is what effect and how big. >We conclude that predators and parasites have a limited but significant effect on overall mosquito populations, and their role should be considered when implementing habitat management, mosquito control and when modeling mosquito population dynamics. From a study http://e-m-b.org/sites/e-m-b.org/files/European_Mosquito_Bulletin_Publications811/EMB25/EMB25_1.pdf http://e-m-b.org/sites/e-m-b.org/files/European_Mosquito_Bul...

asdf21 6y ago

Way more than that if you count diseases from ticks.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Koshkin 6y ago

To put this in a perspective, 1 Mosquito 1,000,000 2 Human 475,000 3 Snake 50,000 4 Dog 25,000 5 Tsetse Fly 10,000 6 Assassin Bug 10,000 7 Freshwater Snail 10,000 8 Ascaris Roundworm 2,500 9 Tapeworm 2,000 10 Crocodile 1,000 11 Hippopotamus 500 12 Elephant 100 13 Lion 100 14 Wolf 10 15 Shark 10 https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-most-humans.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-mo...

creaghpatr 6y ago
I had never heard of Assassin bug but apparently they are all over North America. https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Assassin-Bug https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?... Wonder if those Murder Hornets will make next year's list?
- wetmore 6y ago
  When I was a kid at camp we used to catch them and make them fight other bugs. Those things are creepy.
- spijdar 6y ago
  My understanding from (very briefly) reading about the insect family Reduviidae is some species are parasitic and spread deadly pathogens much the same way mosquitoes do. It's not the insects themselves killing people, but diseases like Chagas disease (Triatominae is a subfamily of Reduviidae "Assassin Bug"). [1] [1] https://www.paho.org/en/topics/chagas-disease https://www.paho.org/en/topics/chagas-disease
- the_af 6y ago
  The assassin bug is called "vinchuca" in my country, Argentina, and it's a real problem here. There are ways to combat the bug, but once you catch the Chagas disease, there's no cure and you have to live with it. There is only symptomatic treatment as far as I know.
- 6y ago

mac01021 6y ago

Just as a curiosity, humans kill hundreds of trillions of insects annually. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-insects-die-from-people-stepping-on-them-daily https://www.quora.com/How-many-insects-die-from-people-stepp...

dheera 6y ago
Insects, however, reproduce so much that without population control, the ecosystem would be in imbalance very quickly, and they can't be educated to have less children. Insects were "designed" into the system such that a large number of them are expected to die. I wouldn't be surprised if birds and spiders kill far more insects than people.
- mac01021 6y ago
  They probably do if you count only humans directly squashing the insects with their hands/feet/cars. If you count things like pollution, pesticides, land use, they absolutely don't. Insect populations have been reduced to a fraction of their former size over the last few decades due to human activity.
mindfulhack 6y ago
I appreciate that type of thinking. I also think that we desire so much to modify or eradicate other species, but we haven't thought about our own species' overpopulation, which is taxing the planet dearly. Not saying people should die, but that in the same breath we have to think about sustainability from that angle too. We're producing too many new humans, and it's lowering the quality of life for both our species and others...
dntbnmpls 6y ago
If you include all human activity - like home building and farming, it's probably in the quadrillions.

ardy42 6y ago

Needs a (2017). This looks like the publish date: > 18.08.2017

ahelwer 6y ago

I grew up in Manitoba so have a very healthy hatred of mosquitoes - 50 of them once followed me into a car during the <1s window of me opening & closing the door (I know because I killed them all before driving) - but anyone leaning toward the idea we should exterminate mosquitoes is incredibly reckless. Ecological systems don't shift slowly, they collapse all at once. Their continued existence is predicated on feedback loops of mind-boggling complexity. To put it another way: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1120044775024013312 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1120044775024013312

dmix 6y ago
> anyone leaning toward the idea we should exterminate mosquitoes Is this actually a thing?
- ahelwer 6y ago
  Of course it is, very popular among the Thought Leader circuit: https://www.sciencealert.com/bill-melinda-gates-funding-scientists-to-engineer-malaria-killing-mosquito https://www.sciencealert.com/bill-melinda-gates-funding-scie...
  - bamboozled 6y ago
    I love this, "Though Leader circuit", been looking for this term for a while!
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Malaria and dengue are only carried by certain mosquito species. Suggestions to eliminate mosquitos through gene therapy almost always concern those specific species, not the relatively harmless (yet very annoying) mosquitos of the global north.
  - graeme 6y ago
    Isn’t that plan only to eliminate the specific species responsible for disease carrying? There are many mosquitos, the mosquito they’re targeting is just one.

paulorlando 6y ago

This is a look into mosquito extirpation programs and what happens when they go wrong: https://unintendedconsequenc.es/more-on-mosquitoes-new-data/ https://unintendedconsequenc.es/more-on-mosquitoes-new-data/

clairity 6y ago

700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag: why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

optimiz3 6y ago
> why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? Probably because 700k/year is globally, while the US alone has suffered 100k deaths in 3 months.
- clairity 6y ago
  currently ~350K global deaths for covid, in 6 months, since december.
  - thawaway1837 6y ago
    In about 3 months. For a disease that was growing exponentially before action was taken and even now is only just stopped growing in countries where action was taken. And no mosquito outbreak has caused entire hospital systems to collapse in various parts of the world.
- jakeogh 6y ago
  https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-pneumonia-deaths-2008-2015.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/influenza-and-pn...
throwaway894345 6y ago
I'm of the impression that in March and perhaps even in April "experts" (whoever they are) thought the US alone could see death tolls in the millions?
- 6y ago

condesising 6y ago

IIRC Weren’t they genetically modified mosquitoes to stop their spread? I guess I’m curious at what point would the Chi turn and we would gain control over the mosquito population?

dean 6y ago

According to the book "The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy C. Winegard, the mosquito has killed an estimated 52 billion people from a total of 108 billion people that have ever lived. (Not sure how those numbers were determined.)

gxqoz 6y ago
This book is in a genre I like (microhistories) but I found it pretty dull reading. It's basically a very superficial history of "the world" (mainly Western Europe) that posits malaria to be the cause of pretty much every world event. I'm sure there's some truth to this, but the plodding military metaphors and oversimplifications really started to wear on me. I haven't read it, but a recent review (https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n11/steven-shapin/drain-the-swamps https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n11/steven-shapin/drain-the-..., possibly behind a paywall) suggested Sonia Shah's The Fever to be a better book on the topic.
bsytko 6y ago
Curious as to why we haven't evolved tougher skin then. Mosquito resistant skin would appear to be a trait that would allow you to live longer.
- acdha 6y ago
  Evolution doesn’t care about longevity or quality of life: it’s all about passing genes on. If some kind of mosquito resistance didn’t lead to increasing the number of children you have there’s not going to be much selection pressure for it.
  - netsec_burn 6y ago
    Would it not, if the individuals that are not bearing the anti-mosquito skin die off?
    - acdha 6y ago
      Possibly but it’s a complicated trade off: first, there’s the question of how much advantage it could confer – if young people get through a disease and the deaths are mostly old people who are past reproductive age, there might not be enough advantage (especially since humans are social - a 10 year old losing a parent is a tragedy but probably not fatal if you live with older siblings, relatives, or a tribe). Depending on what people are dying of and when, this might not be enough to select for. The second big factor is what it would need to develop. This isn’t a directed process - something needs to confer a benefit of some sort early to be selected for, not just after hundreds of generations. If you’re talking about a major change like completely changing mammalian skin, that sounds very complicated compared to other things (such as improved immune function for the specific disease killing people), and there’s an arms race if all you’re doing is selecting for mosquitoes with better bites which might not be winnable. Finally, there’s the question of downsides: do the mutations producing this leave you more vulnerable to other conditions, less likely to attract mates, etc. If that tough skin costs more to grow, you’re paying the cost upfront even if you’re living somewhere without a huge mosquito population, so it might be maladaptive for too much of the total population to maintain. The downsides discussion is particularly relevant in the case of sickle cell anemia, which is believed to be a side effect of an evolved malaria resistance – beneficial if you live in an area where it’s common but a net loss if you do not: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20450-how-sickle-cell-carriers-fend-off-malaria/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20450-how-sickle-cell...

yboris 6y ago

If you want to reduce the number, consider donating money to the cost-effective Against Malaria Foundation https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf - review by GiveWell, and independent charity evaluator $2 donation results in 1 net that lasts 3-4 years protecting 1.8 people on average from malaria $3

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

So, Covid is on track to beat this, sadly.

tempestn 6y ago
Yes, but mosquitos kill that many every single year. Look at the reaction to COVID-19 compared to the amount of effort going into eliminating mosquito-borne disease. There's certainly some, but it's far from the mobilization we see when a calamity on this scale hits rich countries.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Maybe that's cause-and-effect turned around? We stifled our economy and mobilize a million researchers, because we can afford to and have the will. It'll cost us in the end. What do folks in malaria country do? Scavenge their childrens' mosquito nets to catch fish etc. Reject modern medicine and go to the local quack. Foul their water supplies and poach their endangered species. I know, we can have all the morals we can afford. But some large-scale coordinated actions require a populace that is educated and willing.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    It's because SARS-CoV-2 is new, and new things scare us more than things we know. This entire thing has been an exercises in how people fail to properly evaluate risk ... on a global scale .. leading to economic devastation. Wendover did a great video on risk recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtX-Ibi21tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtX-Ibi21tU
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Except this risk is real. The more we learn of it, the more significant it becomes. Fortunately with study we will beat it. But to laugh at the risk of Covid is foolhardy.
- andarleen 6y ago

shoulderfake 6y ago

fucking snakes, hate em

cryptica 6y ago

Mosquitoes are killing people by the hundreds of thousands! Let's shut down the economy and do another round of corporate bailouts!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

activatedgeek 6y ago

It is uneasy to read this number and I don't get the full picture here. 1. What is the distribution of this number across geographical regions? Is it uniformly spread across all regions? Are some regions outliers? 2. The distribution of this number over time of the year in every geographic region is perhaps an interesting thing to look at for short-term solutions.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

When I lived in Africa -especially Nigeria- there were these swarms of mosquitoes that could drain half a pint of blood in a minute or two. My sister got caught in one of them. Not fun. She was covered in the little bastards.

foobiekr 6y ago
One time, while hiking to go bass fishing in the high Uintas, I got attacked by a swarm of mosquitos so insane that they were trying to bite me through my shirt, through my shorts, my face was covered and one of the little bastards managed on land on my cornea. Nightmarish.

eruci 6y ago

1. Stupidity - More than the rest combined.

bradam 6y ago

One of my classmates came back from Africa to Europe this March without any symptoms. 10 days later she got high fever, dizziness, and unfortunately she could not even recognise her family. Everyone thought its COVID, and doctors recommended her to stay home to not spread the "virus". Unfortunately when she got the the hospital, the diagnostics was too late to and she died in malaria 1,5 days later. Please beware of this infection and get the medication even if it has strong side effects.

bsanr2 6y ago
Where in Africa?
- HappyDreamer 6y ago
  And is it okay if I ask how old was she? / are you? I feel sad to hear
grawprog 6y ago
Makes you wonder how many people have actually died so far this way. Being told to stay home and not spread covid, meanwhile something else is actually terribly wrong.
- freedomben 6y ago
  It's terrifying. A friend of a friend of my wife just lost her baby. It was something that would have been easily seen in a routine screening, but because of COVID the OB/GYN wasn't having patients come to the office. It's heart breaking.
  - wolco 6y ago
    Are you saying she wouldn't have lost the baby if she had a routine screen or it would have given her the ability to deal with the issue a litle bit easier by planning a dnc? I've been part of many miscarriages and doctors can tell you something is wrong but rarely can they fix anything before 12 weeks.

nutbutter 6y ago

"The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy Winegard is an excellent read on the topic of the Mosquito. I'm paraphrasing, but I think he mentions that, of all the humans that have ever lived, the mosquito accounts for half of their deaths.

trianglem 6y ago

Also ticks, please can we lump them in with the mosquito genocide.

dade_ 6y ago

Or poverty. Basic healthcare, mosquito nets and dealing with standing water would probably eliminate the majority of these deaths without killing a single mosquito.

pretzel_boss 6y ago

Malaria is a parasite isn't it? Wouldn't that mean that Malaria is killing that many people and the actual numbers are lower? If we are including diseases why not count bats?

atlantacrackers 6y ago

Quick - lock it down. Double unemployment payments. Wait it out in your basement with the light out.

peter_d_sherman 6y ago

>"But the deadliest animal in the world, in terms of how many people it kills every year, is by far the mosquito. As nicely illustrated in an infographic by gatesnotes, mosquitoes kill at least 725,000 persons every year" And yet, we never seem to hear this fact on the News... Yet we do get stories of the form "X killed Y people", where X is some person/group/phenomenon, and Y < 725,000... And usually, Y is not just less, but several orders of magnitude less -- than 725,000... Also... if you happen to leave a window open at night (accidentally, not intentionally, I might add!), and a mosquito should happen to get in -- does that make you an "accessory to murder" ? ?

shlant 6y ago
"And yet, we never seem to hear this fact on the News..." Most likely because A. it disproportionally impacts poorer people in far-off countries and B. It's harder to sell as an enemy/scapegoat compared to other humans/groups/foods/illnesses
acdha 6y ago
> And yet, we never seem to hear this fact on the News... Not sure where you get your news but I’ve heard this mentioned regularly on NPR in coverage about the impacts of climate change, outbreaks, programs testing things like the genetically-engineered sterile mosquito releases, and local programs which are trying to reduce it even if it’s not a high cause of death in the United States. Remember when Zika got heavy coverage?

richardw 6y ago

I think it would take a lot of mosquitoes to take down a human. > True, this tiny insect does not do the job on its own. What makes it so dangerous is its capacity to transmit viruses or other parasites that cause devastating diseases. If you catch Covid-19 from a kiss, we don’t say the other person killed you. We firmly blame the disease not the person who transmits it. “Well your honor, Sally didn’t do it on her own, it was her capacity to transmit viruses or other parasites. But mostly her.” These all seem communicable, but we don’t blame humans: “Lower respiratory infections remained the most deadly communicable disease, causing 3.0 million deaths worldwide in 2016. The death rate from diarrhoeal diseases decreased by almost 1 million between 2000 and 2016, but still caused 1.4 million deaths in 2016. Similarly, the number of tuberculosis deaths decreased during the same period, but is still among the top 10 causes with a death toll of 1.3 million. HIV/AIDS is no longer among the world’s top 10 causes of death, having killed 1.0 million people in 2016 compared with 1.5 million in 2000.” https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-... Yes if you infect someone intentionally that’s different, but the mosquito isn’t trying to kill you. From the article: > (humans by the way are second behind the mosquito, causing 475,000 deaths every year) If it’s not humans killing when we transmit, then it’s not mosquitoes. If the transmitter is involved then humans crush mosquitoes.

CPUstring 6y ago
Mosquitos transmit and incubate malaria. You don't get malaria from hanging out with a person with it, you get it from getting bit by a mosquito that has previously bitten a person with malaria. [0] Given that the two are intrinsically related, it makes little difference when having a shallow discussion to make the distinction. [0]https://healthclinics.superdrug.com/is-malaria-contagious/ https://healthclinics.superdrug.com/is-malaria-contagious/

tim333 6y ago

Not being a fan of mosquitoes or malaria I wouldn't mind giving gene drive a go https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive-mosquitoes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive-mosqu...