By Alesha Thompson
Mosquitoes are more than that annoying buzz in your ear. They are one of the more well-known creatures that can spread infectious diseases to humans. One bite by the mosquito has the ability to give the person or animal a number of different diseases, including West Nile Virus.
West Nile Virus is a disease that infects a number of people, many of whom never feel sick. The CDC reports that 1 in 5 people will develop a fever along with other similar symptoms and around 1 in 150 will develop more serious symptoms. The standard way to prevent this infection is by wearing long sleeves and spraying bug spray when outside for extended time periods. However, a report has recently been published about mosquitoes becoming resistant to bug spray and insecticides.
The article, “Mechanisms of insecticide resistance impact transmission of West Nile Virus“, is from the Institut Pasteur which is a non-profit research center in Paris dedicated to studying biology, diseases and vaccines.
Anna-Bella Failloux, who is the head of the Arboviruses and Insect Vectors laboratory at the center, explains that their study is the first to show the impact that insecticide spraying has on the spread of West Nile Virus and Rift Valley Virus.
They found that the overuse of insecticides is leading to mosquitoes that have developed a genetic resistance to the chemical that otherwise kills them. These mosquitoes are able to spread West Nile Virus better than before and potentially to a larger geographic region. Due to the resistance to insecticides, these mosquitoes have a higher dissemination rate which means the virus spreads more in their bodies. With higher dissemination rates, mosquitoes are more likely to spread West Nile Virus.
The researchers did recommend that more studies be done with more types of mosquitoes in places such as a field, so that we can better understand the way this resistance affects mosquitoes in different types of environments. The researchers conclude that we need to rethink the way we currently control mosquitoes so that we control the spread of West Nile Virus.
Keep wearing those long-sleeved shirts and keep an eye out for better bug spray that will hopefully control the mosquitoes in a way that doesn’t make them better at spreading disease.
For More Information:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2018.2273
https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/index.html
Photo Credit:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-02-insecticide-resistance-genes-affect-vector.html
Environmental Determinants of Infectious Disease 
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