Mosquitos

[Aidan]

On a different matter i wish to present a theory that I have had to live with for some time.
Essentially I believe that if the Mosquito can spread Malaria, swamp fever and other diseases, I cannot see why it cannot spread AIDS.

Think of the dirty needle where the mossie can puncture the skin of one perhaps AIDS infected person, suck out Blood, replace with its own saliva (To fill the vaccume), leave that person and land on the next and do the same thing. On a numbers game in a room with people infected, throw in a few mossies and then what. I have heard several arguments about sample by volume etc, but nothing has convinced me to believe differently...

What do you people think.....

[The Jackeens]

Medical world has denied this generally thus far...

Scary thought mind you Aidan!

K & P

[codprawn]

I have thought this for a long time Aidan - it is highly unlikely but has to be possible. Same as you CAN get aids from a bog seat - if you happen to have a cut on your leg in the same place as some aids carrier who sat on the seat before you for example.

[Aidan]

yes guys, I have carried this theory with me for years, what if i am right.....
Well there is little they can do about it as DDT did not work.

I have bounced it off several doctors and "clever people" and all I got back was it couldnt happen" followed by a smile and nothing concrete to go with it.
Shower of Gobshites.... Anyway no one to this day can give me an argument
as to why it cannot happen.
Obviously to develop full blown AIds requires further developments, but all it takes for HIV pos is a pin prick, now how small is a pin prick...
Mosquito small?
Guess what, it matters as when you go for a Bank Loan and Insurance, guess what.... NO I am sorry, cos you were bitten by a mosquito, or have HIV or what,,,, I dont know but If I was in a room where many people had aids and there were a few Mosquitoes, I wonder how happy I would be???

[eupa]

Very interesting and I dont know the answer -I have suffered from Malaria on two occassions as my blood is really liked by mosquitos. The mosquito- dont foget it is only the female species that is looking for your blood as she needs it to fertilize her eggs- ( I suppose that must have something to do with it?)

The mosquito homes in your exhaled CO2 and 'tests' your blood to see if its suitable . The question that comes to mind then is if 'a mosquito samples an HIV positive blood- does the mosquito get AIDS??' - or does it have an imune system?? Could the lowly mosquito be telling us something on how to cure HIV infections?

Anyway change of subject for about th 3rd time Codders , how is the tub going??

Jonathan

[BogMonster]

I thought AIDS could only be transmitted if the bug was kept warm and if it got outside a certain temperature range it died, maybe a mossie runs too cold (or too hot - try flapping your arms fast enough to make a buzz that high in pitch...)

[codprawn]

Haven't used the tub much lately - been full of Flu - too busy and the weather has been crap but hoping go out next week.

[codprawn]

Originally Posted by BogMonster

I thought AIDS could only be transmitted if the bug was kept warm and if it got outside a certain temperature range it died, maybe a mossie runs too cold (or too hot - try flapping your arms fast enough to make a buzz that high in pitch...)

It can survive for 24hrs or more outside a body in reasonable conditions. Remember mozzies only come out in nice warm weather as a rule!!!

[Aidan]

Originally Posted by eupa

Very interesting and I dont know the answer -I have suffered from Malaria on two occassions as my blood is really liked by mosquitos. The mosquito- dont foget it is only the female species that is looking for your blood as she needs it to fertilize her eggs- ( I suppose that must have something to do with it?)

The mosquito homes in your exhaled CO2 and 'tests' your blood to see if its suitable . The question that comes to mind then is if 'a mosquito samples an HIV positive blood- does the mosquito get AIDS??' - or does it have an imune system?? Could the lowly mosquito be telling us something on how to cure HIV infections?

Anyway change of subject for about th 3rd time Codders , how is the tub going??

Jonathan

Interesting thought and thought reversal on the "if they dont get it, then why not" Or else they do get it or else it doesnt matter if they get it or not but do they transmit it.
I am led to believe that their proboscus has two ducts, one to withdraw blood and the other to replace withs its own salive as in same volume to prevent being stuck by vacuume to the victim.

Again, the mossie has to make this saliva and I do not know much about Micro Biology but that can be quite a bellyfull of infected blood, if not the same weight of the mossie or more.

We are talking about mixing fluids, saliva and blood and the dirty needle syndrome. SO is infection by volume or what..

Its going to take alot of convincing for me to change my mind.
Meanwhile, there are tens of Millions dying each year from it.
Its not all from Drug addiction or sex, there has to be more to it.

There may not be much w can do about it, but if it is the case, there may be a cure in there somewhere as Jonathon mentioned.
We know that DDT does not help.

Furthermore with Increases in CO2 and the Mossie homing in, they will have to sharpen their infra red detection but the problem will get worse

Well done Ireland on Triple crown, though the bloody scots didnt give in easily...

[eupa]

Anyway... you all will glad to hear that there is:

- an old herbal( ex chinese) remedy if you get malaria coming from a common weed and;
- there is now an effective vaccine that unfortunately is in short supply, but is syhthesied artificallly.

Aids that's another ball game ( excuse the pun Aidan - for once Ireland is a bit stonger than normal - the worst however must be Scotland being beaten by Itlay )

Aids - I do not see that there will be an effective, cheap cure. Hold on a minute , of course there is, tie a knot in it.....

Jonathan

[DJL]

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~insects/aids.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa/qa32.htm

[codprawn]

Originally Posted by DJL

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~insects/aids.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa/qa32.htm

So the official answer is "no" - until you read it in depth and then it becomes "improbable" - a 1 in 10million chance is mentioned. Considering how many people there are in this world it means it HAS to happen - prob about the same odds as winning the lottery - but it DOES happen........

[DJL]

Originally Posted by codprawn

So the official answer is "no" - until you read it in depth and then it becomes "improbable" - a 1 in 10million chance is mentioned. Considering how many people there are in this world it means it HAS to happen - prob about the same odds as winning the lottery - but it DOES happen........

Yes it possibly could happen - it's going to be less likely than 1 in 10mil though - that figure assumes each of the 10mil mosquitoes had previously fed on an HIV carrier.

[Poly]

I do not know much about Micro Biology

Aidan,

It might surprise you to know that those who do know a lot about it (and those who undestand the detailed virology of HIV, and those who understand the life cycle of the mosquito etc) have given this issue considerable thought, discussion and scientific investigation.

In essence - mosquito bourne diseases such as Malaria are ingested by the mosquito and survive the mosquito's digestion processes - whereas HIV does not. Diseases like malaria can actually multiply inside the mosquito and are found at high levels in mosquito saliva. The mode of infection is through the contaminated saliva - HIV never reaches the saliva, as it is destroyed by the digestive system of the mosquito.

As stated elsewhere mosquitos don't "feed" on blood as such and only (the females) bite to assist with egg development. The life cycle is such that a female only requires one full blood meal every - 3-5 days for each batch of eggs. HIV virus will not survive that long outside a suitable vector (e.g. living person), so the risk of infection between a person bitten in subsequent batches of egg laying is non existent.

As far as the mosquito is concerned the ideal situation is it gets the entire feed from a single host. If the mosquito gets distrurbed it can start its meal on one host and then move to another. This is where the potential risk you describe could arise. The way the probiscus works the only risk is from "residual" virus on the exterior (any material on the inside is being sucked back up to feed on) - so the question then is if there would be sufficient virus present to represent an "infectious dose". The levels of HIV freely circulating in the blood of infected people is usually very low (for this reason tests for HIV typically detect the antibodies the body produces rather than the virus itself). The calculated probability of a single HIV particle being transferred to the second "host" is < 1 in 10,000,000 even if the concentration of HIV particles in the first host's blood is 100x higher than that typically found in HIV carriers. (so if you were bitten 10 million times by a mosquito (or mosquitos) which had very recently (in the last few hours) fed on a person with an exceptionally high level of HIV in their blood you would be likely to get a single HIV virus particle injected into you. This might give rise to an infection. You would probably die from the itching first!

Originally Posted by Aidan

Meanwhile, there are tens of Millions dying each year from it.
Its not all from Drug addiction or sex, there has to be more to it.

Why not? The epidemiology fits with the known possible (likely) modes of transmission.

If you were telling me that loads of African nuns were getting HIV and no one could explain how then your suggestion would make sense.

Oh and "tens of millions" is a bit of an exageration the WHO estimate is around 3 million for 2006! Estimates of for the known mosquito bourne disease (malaria, nile fever etc) deaths are larger than this.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by codprawn

So the official answer is "no" - until you read it in depth and then it becomes "improbable" - a 1 in 10million chance is mentioned. Considering how many people there are in this world it means it HAS to happen - prob about the same odds as winning the lottery - but it DOES happen........

No cods - thats a 1 in 10 million chance if the initial dose to the mosquito is over 100x higher than would be expected. Its also the probability of getting "dosed" with one particle, not of being infected. And it assumes that you are bitten in the first place by a mosquito which has recently feasted on an infected person.

The number of people in the world is actually pretty irrelevant. The important factors are: the number of people who get bitten by mosquitos and the number of people who could infect that mosquito in the first place.

So e.g. if there was only 1 person with HIV in the whole world then the calculation would still be the same - but the probability of anyone else being infected tiny. IIRC Current estimates are around 50-60 million HIV carriers worldwide. With a worldwide population of 6 billion then that is 1% of the population (although there may be more carriers in high mosquito risk areas so this next bit is probably biased). So our 1 in 10 million chance becomes more like 1 in a billion. If we then factor in the 100x higher than normal dose you are looking at 1 in 100 billion. Factoring in how often the mosquito needs to feed on different people (within the timescales of HIV survival), the fact that you need to be the second recipient not the first, the probability you get bitten at all etc means that the probability truely is tiny...

[Poly]

Originally Posted by codprawn

It can survive for 24hrs or more outside a body in reasonable conditions. Remember mozzies only come out in nice warm weather as a rule!!!

HIV does not survive dehydration. It can survive for hours - but only where it remains in a liquid such as blood.
The often quoted 24 hour number relates to: 1 artificially high levels of HIV in the initial sample. The time for >99% of the virus to become non infectious. And assumes that the sample remains moist in a suitable medium for survival (such as blood, semen etc).

In reality the tiny amound of blood being discussed here will dry very quickly and the virus almost immediately become inactive.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by codprawn

you CAN get aids from a bog seat - if you happen to have a cut on your leg in the same place as some aids carrier who sat on the seat before you for example.

mmm...
firstly he needs to have cut himself but not healed.
then he needs to leave so little blood that you don't see the blood but still leave enough for an infectious dose to be transferred to you.
secondly you need to have cut yourself but not healed. furthermore your bleeding will "flush" the wound so wash away the virus.

add to this the need for the blood to be fresh (not dried yet) and I would say that it is virtually impossible - even if you tried to set this up I doubt it would result in an HIV infection.

[Aidan]

Bull shit.

Ok so I read all the medical stuff and such. What I have taken from it all is that "it is posible" each one said it cannot happen and then goes on to say that its most unlikely and the odds are against it and such...

Consider this ( I have often woken with several lumps on me from one night..so much for teh one meal every 3 days
I dont care if they are male and female (hard to check if they have balls)
If someone with aids has just being half bitten sucked and the mosie lands on me and I feel it and slap the little f..ker, do you think that as I slap him/her that his /her probiscus gives a shit whether its inward flow or outward flow...
What was the last thing to go through teh mossies head as I slapped him in the middle of biting me...... His/her arse, oh and along with teh contaminated blood.

Now I dont know as much as ye fellers about Mosquito shit, but something is making it happen.
They can happily survive minus 25 Degrees, they can bite through Carabou skin, in fact every year in the Tundra, Carabou are atacked by Sky Black Swarms which deplete some carabou so much, they die from blood loss. They cannot all be female because, there is little else left in the area at that stage of the season...

Cmon guys, I have never accepted such bullshit answers, but it is as I expected, I still have heard nothing that says no it cannot..
Therefore I expect it can. I do love a good argument and I could go through each point raised which is mostly conjecture. By teh way what is the precise enzyme that teh mossie processes the blood with. When is a volume sample so small tht it cannot pass ais, these are all new things tome.

Go on write me off as a crank and say it doesnt matter. Just think about it the next time you are some South African countries,

[codprawn]

Originally Posted by eupa

Very interesting and I dont know the answer -I have suffered from Malaria on two occassions as my blood is really liked by mosquitos. The mosquito- dont foget it is only the female species that is looking for your blood as she needs it to fertilize her eggs- ( I suppose that must have something to do with it?)

The mosquito homes in your exhaled CO2 and 'tests' your blood to see if its suitable . The question that comes to mind then is if 'a mosquito samples an HIV positive blood- does the mosquito get AIDS??' - or does it have an imune system?? Could the lowly mosquito be telling us something on how to cure HIV infections?

Anyway change of subject for about th 3rd time Codders , how is the tub going??

Jonathan

Talking of Malaria do you still get any return bouts of it cos I seem to now and again!!!

[eupa]

Originally Posted by codprawn

Talking of Malaria do you still get any return bouts of it cos I seem to now and again!!!

Yes but not the same intensity. Just a 24 hr thing when you overheat, and want to kill everybody in sight I have been vaccinated about two months ago. Going to Gabon/Congo June.Let you know.....

But much worse for a 'mature adult' is the West-nile virus. I had that about 4years ago in Florida-there is no cure or vaccine. The bastards just love me.

jonathan