The HIV virus is causing a worldwide pandemic. So far, it has infected over 35 million people and caused more than 25 million deaths. HIV itself can be fatal, but what is even more worrying is that HIV-infected people may pass the HIV virus onto other people through their blood or bodily fluids. This means that HIV spreads easily between humans by direct contact with infected blood or body fluids. The HIV/AIDS pandemic shows no signs of abating…but could mosquitoes also spread HIV?

Also known as Aedes Aegypti, the yellow fever mosquito typically lives in tropical climates and prefers to feed on human blood at night. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Malaria Research Institute, it is a potent HIV vector because it bites humans and passes HIV in its saliva. In fact, HIV transmission by mosquitoes has been documented in several case reports. For example, in Thailand HIV was transmitted from the blood of an HIV-infected man to a mosquito that then bit a woman who contracted HIV from the mosquito’s bite! Yikes! There have also been reports of the Zika virus being spread from person to person through infected mosquitoes. It is important to note that these cases occurred among extremely small populations without access to medical care and mosquito control.

Similarly, in areas where malaria is endemic, many HIV/AIDS patients are already co-infected with malaria parasites – which are transmitted via mosquitoes. So we may not even have to wait for the global HIV/AIDS pandemic to strike to see HIV spread by mosquitoes!

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is still going strong, but HIV-positive patients have access to anti-retroviral drugs that help manage the HIV infection and allow HIV-infected persons to live long, healthy lives. So HIV has become a chronic disease instead of an imminent cause for death. However in areas of the world without adequate healthcare or mosquito control systems it is possible for HIV-positive folks to contract HIV from mosquitoes…so maybe we should start thinking about how we can prevent HIV transmission by mosquitoes even in countries with modern healthcare systems.

As you may know, the Zika virus is causing havoc in Brazil as well as other regions around the world where it has been detected. There have already been more than 50 reported cases of microphthalmia (babies born with small heads and brain damage) in newborns of mothers infected by Zika. There have also been reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disorder that can cause temporary paralysis even though it is not HIV-related. As the link between the Zika virus and microphthalmia becomes stronger, scientists are growing alarmed about how quickly this mosquito-borne disease could spread through other parts of South America or even North America!

In fact, according to Dr. Peter Hotez, an assistant professor at the Baylor College of Medicine and president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Texas, “We know that mosquitoes transmit HIV. If you do nothing else [but reduce mosquito populations], you would be able to fight HIV. Cutting the mosquito population is one of the single most effective ways to combat HIV. In Africa, HIV spreads so rapidly because mosquitoes also transmit HIV.”

The yellow fever mosquito thrives in tropical areas with poor garbage management and a lack of quality healthcare systems that can provide anti-retroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS patients. Since access to health services is limited in these countries, HIV/AIDS remains uncontrolled on a large scale – meaning an outbreak could quickly become a worldwide pandemic if it was not contained by mosquito control. Therefore we hope that developing new methods for reducing or eliminating yellow fever mosquitoes will be a top priority for scientists all over the world. The cost of doing nothing (apart from microphthalmia and Guillain-Barre syndrome) is HIV/AIDS, which has proven to be a global epidemic that will not go away anytime soon!

For more information on HIV transmission by mosquitoes see this article in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (in case you need to cite it for Biology class).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3512897/

I hope these articles help clarify HIV transmission through mosquitoes and other insects as much as possible – it’s pretty complicated when you dig into it but there are some good science articles out there that can clarify the issue so people can make informed decisions without relying solely on mainstream news stories… What do you think?