Mosquito: more than a bug

Anopheles mosquito, a vector of Malaria   In one half of the world, the mosquito is seen to most as a minor annoyance, but for others, mosquitoes are synonymous with disease, pain, and death. Today is the World Mosquito Day and the perfect reminder of the devastating impact of such diseases as Malaria, Zika, and various kinds of Encephalitis for which mosquitoes are a major vector. Malaria – a headline disease Malaria is the headline disease associated with mosquitoes and it was on this very day in 1897 that Sir Ronald Ross discovered that female mosquitoes can transmit malaria between humans. This was a major breakthrough in tackling the disease, yet despite significant progress, over 100 years on it is still the cause of tens of thousands of deaths every year, with annual case numbers on a steady incline. ‘Bad Air’ of the ancients Malaria dates back thousands of years. Ancestral evidence found in 30-million-year-old amber shows that mosquitoes plagued humans from the earliest civilizations. It started having a significant impact on human survival roughly 10,000 years ago at the start of agriculture, and even Cleopatra is reputed to have slept under a mosquito net – though likely to avoid bites in general, rather than a preventative measure for the disease. Given the disease’s age, it is no surprise it has been referenced under many different names, such as Roman Fever and ‘Bad Air’ (Mal Aria), from which the modern name is derived. A brief history ...
Source: GIDEON blog - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Epidemiology News Source Type: blogs