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Mosquitoes could be the sole species to be benefitting from climate change, as the warmer and wetter weather that comes with global warming makes for their ideal environment. Thanks to this, the insects are growing bigger and living longer, increasing their ability to pick up and spread potentially deadly diseases. Bites from the blood-sucking bugs are more than just an annoyance – different species can carry infectious diseases including dengue fever, Zika virus, yellow fever, chikungunya virus, malaria, and West Nile virus that they pick up from one person and pass it on to the next. Mosquito-borne disease experts are...

Health authorities in Jamaica over the weekend issued warnings about a dengue fever outbreak with more than 500 suspected or confirmed cases so far. "The dominant strain is Dengue Type 2, which last predominated in 2010," the Jamaica Ministry of Health and Wellness said in a statement Saturday via the government-backed Jamaica Information Service, which added that there are "no dengue-related deaths classified at this time." However, it stressed that six deaths are under investigation. As of Sept. 22, there were 565 confirmed, suspected, and presumed cases of dengue, a virus that is spread via certain species of mosquitoes. Some...

Mass vaccinations will soon be required to deal with the effects of climate change including the threat of diseases spread by mosquitoes migrating to new regions, according to Bill Gate’s World Health Organization.Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, made the disturbing comments at a recent press conference while sitting next to WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus.“A lot of this is also about other uses of tools that exist,” she said, “in instances where we have interventions like medical interventions, therapeutics or vaccines depending on the pathogen.”“We need to be able to prepare for that.” Van Kerkhove further...

Another case of locally contracted malaria has been detected in Florida, bringing the national tally to eight. Health officials said the patient was diagnosed last week in Sarasota County, southwest Florida, where the other cases in the state were also detected. It brings Florida's tally to seven — with five detected last month and one in May — alongside a case in Texas revealed in June in a 21-year-old National Guardsman. They mark the first cases of domestically-transmitted malaria spotted in the US for more than two decades, in a sign the disease may be gaining a foothold here. .....

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved a British biotech firm’s application to release 2.4 million genetically altered mosquitoes into the wild as an “experimental pesticide product.”Via NBC News:The experimental public health effort, which still requires final approval from state regulators, follows the 2021 release of 144,000 genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys by British biotech firm Oxitec.Oxitec said its genetically modified male, and thus non-biting, mosquitoes “find and mate with invasive female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, mediating a reduction of the target population as the female offspring of these encounters cannot survive,” thus reducing the overall population…Oxitec’s mosquito release...

The British biotech company Oxitec is moving ahead with its controversial plan to release hundreds of millions of gene-hacked mosquitoes, an experimental new form of targeted pest control, in the Florida Keys.The goal is essentially to introduce a new genetically altered version of the Aedes aegypti mosquito — which can spread diseases like dengue and malaria — that can only hatch male, non-biting offspring, in order to gradually reduce the population.A connection that has gone mostly unremarked during the experiment’s rollout is the involvement of Microsoft co-founder and public health philanthropist Bill Gates in the funding of the company, confirmed...

Warmer, wetter conditions mean tropical diseases like dengue and chikungunya are spreading, says Lara Williams for Bloomberg Opinion.When you think of dangerous animals, the ones that typically spring to mind have teeth or claws. But what about wings and a proboscis? In many countries, mosquitoes are nothing more than a nuisance. But in others, they spread tropical diseases that kill at least 700,000 people a year - more than any other animal, according to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO). Unfortunately, they’re likely to get deadlier. As greenhouse gas emissions make our planet hotter and wetter, disease-spreading mosquitoes are...

A longstanding medical myth suggests that taking vitamin B1, also known as thiamine, can make your body repel mosquitoes. A “systemic repellent” that makes your whole body unappealing to biting insects certainly sounds good. Even if you correctly reject the misinformation questioning safe and effective repellents like DEET, oral repellents would still have the benefit that you wouldn’t need to worry about covering every inch of exposed skin or carrying containers of bug spray whenever you venture into the great outdoors. Along with thiamine, other alleged oral mosquito repellents include brewer’s yeast, which contains thiamine, and garlic, the legendary vampire...

Earlier this week, health officials reported that a Maricopa County resident recently contracted dengue, while routine surveillance has found traces of the dengue virus in at least one nearby mosquito population. These discoveries suggest that the infection could be spreading locally in the state for the first time, though the investigation is still ongoing. Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH) officials announced the human case of dengue on Monday, though no other details about the patient were provided. They also reported that the Maricopa County Environmental Services Department had detected the virus last month in samples taken from a...

Researchers at Rockefeller University in New York found people who have higher levels of certain acids on their skin are 100 times more attractive to the female Aedes aegypti, the type of mosquito responsible for spreading diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika. The findings, published Tuesday in the journal Cell, could lead to new products that could mask or alter certain human odors, making it harder for mosquitoes to find human blood and potentially curbing the spread of disease. SNIP Experts have found people seem to become more attractive to mosquitoes when they're pregnant or after they've...

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded a malaria vaccine trial study that used genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes to vaccinate humans.A team of researchers at the University of Washington conducted the study, which was published in the Science Translational Medicine journal.The study involved 26 participants who received three to five “jabs” — or bites from a small box containing 200 GM mosquitoes — over a 30-day period.Sanaria, a company funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), is closely connected to the research, and the researchers involved in the trial use a gene-editing technology heavily promoted by...

A British biotech firm this week got the green light from U.S. regulators to release over 2 million genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida and California as part of an expanded effort to combat transmission of diseases like Zika, dengue fever and canine heartworm. The experimental public health effort, which still requires final approval from state regulators, follows the 2021 release of 144,000 genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys by British biotech firm Oxitec. Oxitec said its genetically modified male, and thus non-biting, mosquitoes "find and mate with invasive female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, mediating a reduction of the target population...

The stinging mosquito; the blood-sucking beast; the destroyer of your evening peace; and the silent killer of your midnight sleep. Who knew these pesky little super-spreader of diseases could be transformed into flying vaccine-carrying syringes.Turning killers into savioursThe story goes back 11 years ago when a group of Japanese researchers genetically engineered mosquitoes that spread vaccines instead of disease. Now normally when mosquitoes bite, they inject a tiny drop of saliva that prevents your blood from clotting. What this group did was add an antigen--a compound that triggers an immune response--to the mix of proteins in their saliva.For their study,...

Imagine this: A pesky mosquito sips some of your blood. Hours later, the blood-sucker drops dead, poisoned by the very blood it just slurped down. That may sound too good to be true, but it's a tantalizing possibility, according to research published this week in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The study points to a potential new tool to fight malaria: the medication ivermectin. Studies conducted in the 2000s, including one in 2010, show that malaria-carrying mosquitoes die after feeding on individuals who have ingested the drug. ......... In their study, the researchers demonstrate that three high doses of...

Genetically modified mosquitoes have been released for the first time in the United States as part of an experiment to combat insect-borne diseases such as Dengue fever, yellow fever, and the Zika virus. UK-based biotechnology firm Oxitec, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said it released the mosquitoes in six locations in Monroe County’s Florida Keys: two on Cudjoe Key, one on Ramrod Key, and three on Vaca Key. It’s part of an effort to help tackle a disease-transmitting invasive mosquito population—the Aedes aegypti mosquito species—that’s responsible for “virtually all mosquito-borne diseases transmitted to humans,” according...

The biotech firm Oxitec has released its genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys, with the goal of suppressing wild, disease-carrying mosquito populations in the region. This is the first time genetically modified mosquitoes have been released in the US. Oxitec previously released its modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Panama, and Malaysia, and the company reported that local A. aegypti populations fell by at least 90 percent in those locations, Live Science previously reported. A. aegypti can carry diseases such as Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever, and releasing modified mosquitoes offers a way to control...

Thick swarms of mosquitoes pushed out of southwestern Louisiana's marshes by Hurricane Laura are killing cattle and horses. "The population just exploded in the southwest part of the state," Jeremy Hebert, a Louisiana State University AgCenter agent in Acadia Parish, said in a news release. Dr. Craig Fontenot, a large-animal veterinarian based in Evangeline Parish, told the Associated Press 300 to 400 head of cattle have been lost since Laura hit the state on Aug. 27.

KEY LARGO, Fla. — An 11th case of the mosquito-borned dengue fever has been confirmed in the Florida Keys, health officials said. So far, all 11 cases have been in Key Largo, including 8 cases the last week of June, the Florida Department of Health officials said Tuesday. Officials are “currently conducting epidemiological studies to determine the origin and extent of these infections,” Florida Keys spokeswoman Alison Kerr told the Miami Herald. The latest patient has been treated and is expected to make a complete recovery, Kerr said. Health department officials believe all of the cases were locally acquired, the...

Mosquitoes are a common summer-time foe that are known vectors of the West Nile Virus, Zika, Chikungunya and several other diseases that sicken humans, but what about the novel coronavirus? As the weather warms and many move their stay-at-home orders to their backyard, the question of whether you can contract COVID-19 through a mosquito bite continues to surface. There are several types of human coronaviruses, including MERS and SARS, which each caused deadly outbreaks of their own. COVID-19, however, has never been seen before, and is caused by SARS-CoV-2. As a whole, coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that...

The chemical, DFDT, could have an impact combating disease-carrying mosquitoes while causing less environmental damage than the chemically similar DDT. American scientists previously looked into the insecticide in the 1940s, but it was lost in the chaos following World War II, likely due to its ties to the Nazi regime. Chemistry researchers had been examining the insecticide DDT, known for its devastating environmental effects. They made some changes to DDT’s crystal structure by swapping out chlorine atoms for fluorine, and tested the new chemical, known as DFDT, on fruit flies and mosquitoes. DFDT killed mosquitoes — including species that carry...