We have talking robots, we have self driving cars, we have the best technology that can do almost anything. Why can we not stop mosquitoes from killing tens of thousands each year?

Question

Why is it so hard to stop mosquitoes? Why can’t we create a solution to kill the diseases mosquitoes carry and distribute them to to the most affected people? I could be super ignorant but it seems like it would be fairly easy if multiple nations came together.

In: Biology

Answer 1

Mosquitoes are more complex then many people realise. They are not just one species and are in fact made up of about 3500 different species, most of which don’t spread disease. There are probably about 50-100 species that do spread disease in humans. The diseases they spread are different, eg some will spread malaria and others will spread dengue. Although they all do this through the female biting to get to your blood, they have subtlety different behaviours which means things like bed nets will work for some (like anopheles gamibae and not other like aedes albopictus). Added to this you have mosquitoes that show insecticide resistance and disease that are drug resistant.

As other people of have said; on top of this you have poverty and lack of resources in the places where people suffer most from mosquito based diseases.