The new novel mosquito's discovery on Guantanamo Bay reveals how globalization is threatening to release the next pandemic.
This was according to a BBC News report that also says, on June 18, 2019, on the United States naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "an intruder was caught in a trap."
This intruder was called the "Aedes vittatus mosquito." It was one of more than 3,000 mosquito species found worldwide and is now a new addition to the dozen or more species in North America Carrying parasites or pathogens that are harmful to humans.
Other species such as Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti can spread yellow fever, chikungunya, and yellow fever.
However, different from those others, Aedes vittatus has the ability to carry almost all of the most hazardous mosquito-borne diseases, except for malaria.
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The proboscis of an Aedes albopictus mosquito feeding on human blood. Under experimental conditions, the Aedes albopictus mosquito, also known as the Asian Tiger Mosquito, is a West Nile Virus vector. Aedes is a genus of the Culicine family of mosquitos.
Close Contact with the Mosquitoes, Not Good News
According to Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit's research director Yvonne-Marie Linton, "Being in close contact with the said mosquitoes is not good news."
She added, they are breeding in one's birdbath and feeding off the kids. Linton is also a curator of almost two million specimens in the Smithsonian Institution's US National Mosquito Collection.
Additionally, the research team discovered this new mosquito said, the Aedes vittatus is endemic to the Indian subcontinent had never been observed or witnessed in the western hemisphere up to the present.
The mosquito added, "is a proven vector of chikungunya, Zika, dengue, yellow fever viruses," and many other illnesses.
Contribution of Climate Age to Spread of Viruses
The first specimens probably traveled in this country as eggs via a shipping container or possibly aircraft. According to the research team, the possible proliferation of the said species throughout the Caribbean and the southern US will be equally manmade.
Essentially, they explained, climate change is shortening winters in North America, enabling mosquitoes to breed many more times in just one season and, therefore, transmit viruses "further afield."
Mosquitoes are getting far less, compared to, say, the swarms of what's called the "murder hornets" initially observed in North America last year.
However, originally from Japan, these mosquitoes spread across the Pacific Northwest of America, killing destroying colonies of honeybees.
Not the First Mosquito to Inflict Chaos on North America
The Aedes vittatus is not the first mosquito to inflict chaos on North America. One hundred years ago, malaria, which the Anopheles mosquito carried, was widespread, causing the illness of thousands each year.
Large sections of the American South were malarial swamps before the illness was removed from the continental US, journalist Matthew Power wrote.
Meanwhile, images from the 1940s and '50s decades exhibit men, women, and children being sprayed down by DDT pesticide, now identified as "toxic" to humans.
To date, mosquitoes are kept bay by more environment-friendly but no less severe procedures. In his writing, Power added, "Wetlands are drained, forests are felled, farmers migrate to cities," houses are constructed with windows, all to shield from mosquito-borne illnesses.
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