Mosquito-borne Disease - Epidemiology

Epidemiology

Mosquitoes are estimated to transmit disease to more than 700 million people annually in Africa, South America, Central America, Mexico and much of Asia with millions of resulting deaths. In Europe, Russia, Greenland, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and other temperate and developed countries, mosquito bites are now mostly an irritating nuisance; but still cause some deaths each year.

Historically, before mosquito transmitted diseases were brought under control, they caused tens of thousands of deaths in these countries and hundreds of thousands of infections. Mosquitoes were shown to be the method by which yellow fever and malaria were transmitted from person to person by Walter Reed, William C. Gorgas and associates in the U.S. Army Medical Corps first in Cuba and then around the Panama Canal in the early 1900s. Since then other diseases have been shown to be transmitted the same way.

Mosquitoes are a perfect example of one of the many organisms that can host diseases. Of the known 14,000 infectious microorganisms, 600 are shared between animals and humans. Mosquitoes are known to carry many infectious diseases from several different classes of microorganisms, including viruses and parasites. Mosquito-borne illnesses include Malaria, West Nile Virus, Elephantiasis, Dengue Fever, Yellow Fever etc. These infections are normally rare to certain geographic areas. For instance Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever is a viral, mosquito borne illness usually regarded only as a risk in the tropics. However, cases of Dengue Fever have been popping up in the U.S. along the Texas-Mexican border where it has never been seen before.