Why insects do not transmit AIDS?
There are several reasons why insects such as mosquitoes do not transmit AIDS:
1- Most people think that mosquito bites act like very thin hypodermic syringes, and if a hypodermic syringe can easily transmit the disease, then mosquitoes can also transmit AIDS. While this is not the case.
People infected with the HIV virus do not have many viruses in their blood, and even if there is, mosquitoes cannot transmit the AIDS virus through the way they are transmitted by syringes.
When a mosquito bites a person, it does not introduce the blood of the previously bitten person that is in the digestive system of the mosquito into the body of the second person, but its saliva enters the skin of the second person through the bite.
Unlike a syringe, in mosquitoes, saliva exits through one channel and blood enters through another channel. Mosquito saliva has substances that prevent blood clotting and make it easier for mosquitoes to suck blood. Therefore, blood transfer to the second person does not take place, and only insect saliva may enter the body of the second person, which saliva is not the cause of AIDS transmission.
In simpler terms, a mosquito that sucks the blood of a healthy person injects saliva into the healthy person’s body from a channel other than the one with which it sucked the previously infected blood.
2- The parts of the insect’s mouth and saliva may only contain very small amounts of blood, while the blood of people with AIDS does not always have a high level of the virus. So, overall, there is very little risk that mosquito saliva is bloody.
The disease agent that is supposed to be transmitted by the mosquito’s mouthparts must be present in very high amounts in the blood.
The amount of HIV in the blood is very low, at least much lower than any other mosquito-borne parasite. Rarely more than 10 units of HIV are found in the blood of infected people, and in 70-80% of infected people, there is no measurable virus in the blood at all.
Calculations have shown that if a mosquito sucks the blood of an infected person who has 1,000 units of HIV and then bites a healthy person, there is a one in ten million chance of transmitting a single unit of HIV through mouthparts to a healthy recipient. In other words, a healthy person must be bitten by 10 million mosquitoes to get infected through the viruses attached to his mouthparts!
Based on similar calculations, crushing a mosquito full of HIV virus on the skin cannot transmit AIDS. Finally, it can be concluded that it is not possible to transmit the AIDS virus through the mouthparts of mosquitoes. The AIDS virus does not have the power to reproduce and survive in the body of insects.
3- In addition, the AIDS virus does not survive in the insect’s body for a very long time, because of the enzymes of the insect’s digestive system. AIDS virus It does not have the power to reproduce and survive in his body. When the mosquito wants to transmit the agent of a disease, that agent must survive until it is fully transmitted inside the mosquito’s body. If the mosquito digests the agent, then the infection transmission cycle remains incomplete and interrupted.
Parasites that are transmitted through mosquitoes have different ways of dealing with the mosquito’s digestive system. Some are resistant to the digestive enzymes of the mosquito’s stomach. Some leave the stomach as quickly as possible, before the powerful enzymes affect them.
For example Malaria parasite It can survive in the mosquito’s body for about 9 to 12 days with different methods and can be transmitted from sick people to healthy people through mosquito bites.
Research on the HIV virus has shown that the AIDS virus is food for mosquitoes and is digested along with blood. In this way, the mosquito completely digests and destroys the virus and all its parts that are likely to cause re-infection within 1 to 2 days. Since the AIDS virus does not have a way to multiply and attack the salivary glands,
The way most parasites use to transfer from one host to another is impossible for the HIV virus.
4- Another reason is that, according to entomologists, biting insects such as mosquitoes do not go after another prey immediately after biting a person and rest for a while to digest the sucked blood. During this time, the HIV virus is destroyed. All these reasons show that we should not worry about HIV transmission through insects.
Of course, it should be noted that some diseases can be transmitted through mosquito bites; such as malaria, malaria, yellow fever, etc.
After entering the mosquito’s body, these viruses multiply in the digestive system of the insect and infect the cells of the wall of the mosquito’s digestive system and survive easily. These diseases can be transmitted through mosquito saliva, but the AIDS virus cannot be transmitted through insect saliva.
Source: Health
