Why can’t mosquitoes transmit HIV?
HERE IS WHY MOSQUITOES CANNOT TRANSMIT HIV
First, I need you to know that even though mosquitoes take in the malaria parasites through blood, they don’t pass it through blood. They pass it through saliva.
After sucking blood from an infected person, the pathogen follows the blood to their stomach. After about 10-18 days, the parasite would have multiplied and move to their saliva. When next they want to feed, they inject their saliva to the victim to numb the person so that they won’t know anything is happening. It is in this saliva that the malaria parasite is passed.
For HIV however, it does not get to the saliva. It is digested by the mosquito within two days. This is because mosquitoes lack the human T-cells needed in the body for the virus to replicate and survive.
The intriguing life cycle of the mosquito
The four stages of development of a mosquito are egg, larva, pupa and adult.
Typically, neither male nor female mosquitoes are immediately prepared for reproduction upon emerging from their pupal stage. However, there is an intriguing exception to this norm found in New Zealand, involving an exotic mosquito known as Opifex fuscus, which inhabits saltwater pools along the coast. In this species, the males exhibit an unusually aggressive mating behavior near water bodies where mosquito pupae are present.
Picture a man that violently pulls out a baby girl while the mother is still trying to push her out and for**ces him**self on this new baby. Graphic and despicable right? This is exactly what the males of this mosquito species do! As the pupae begin to emerge from their watery encasements, these male mosquitoes dart across the water’s surface, like a fishing eagle hunting fish. When a pupa breaks through the water’s surface tension, the male swiftly converges on the spot, seizing the pupa with remarkable force, often causing it to split open. At this stage, the emerging mosquito is vulnerable because its legs have not yet fully freed themselves. If the mosquito that emerges is male, the marauding male releases it. However, if it’s a female mosquito, a distressing event unfolds, resembling a form of sexual coercion, where the male ensures that the female is impregnated in her very first moments of adulthood.
If mosquitoes have trauma, this would weigh 100 on their trauma scale, I’m sure.
Wickedness is in nature. Nature is not all hakuna matata. We just choose to tell the good, snuggly and cute sides of the story most times.
Thank you
