I’ve long known that mosquitos cannot transmit HIV to human beings, but has anyone ever considered this theory?
If an HIV infected person was standing beside of an HIV negative person, and a mosquito flys over and bites the HIV positive person, and then seconds later, that exact same mosquito flys over to the HIV negative person and begins to bite them. Why can’t the HIV positive blood remain infectious on the mouthparts (needle, feeding apparatus) of the mosquito and infect the HIV negative person? Think of it like a flying hypodermic needle/syringe! Keep in mind, only a few seconds have passed between the two bites. Let’s hear it!
In: Biology
[removed]
Mosquitoes don’t bite all that often, and HIV doesn’t live that long outside the body.
Only female mosquitoes bite to get necessary nutrients to produce eggs. A single female will only have a blood meal 8-10 times in her life. That’s about 3-4 days between blood meals.
HIV can only survive 1-2 hours outside the body (up to 42 days in a refrigerated blood filled syringe, but a mosquito is very far from that)
In addition to this, the amount of blood taken from a human is absolutely miniscule, and the backflow of blood from the mosquito is nearly impossible even if it does feed with blood in its belly.
Other diseases transmitted by mosquitoes are able to survive in the mosquito’s saliva, which it injects into you as an anticoagulant to keep the blood flowing during the meal (and which makes you itch)
That is an extremely minute amount of blood.
The mosquito also immediately pulls all the blood into its gut and prior to biting someone else, prepares saliva in its Stylets then injects that before pulling out blood. Therefore there is no remaining blood within its Stylets.
Also mosquitos don’t have T cells therefore the virus can’t replicate.
[removed]
I know this is not the topic but why mosquitos didn’t evolve or learn not to go near the human head/ear. I mean I wouldn’t bother to get up from the bed to kill them if they would just go to my feet or something. But when I hear that buzz next to my head, it is showtime.
Latest Answers