I live in Alaska --- the state bird besides the American Bald Eagle (which are annoying critters who eat the baby duckies in my pond in my front yard)...
IS THE MOSQUITO
They are the size of small VW Bugs...
They are humongo!
They carry small children away
They leap tall buildings
They sneak in holes the size of a pin head...
they torment you at night
They find a way to buzz you in your ear
And I haven't figured out how they can nip me in the butt --- through undies and jeans --- and through the 18 pounds of makeup I wear on my face.
(Tammy Faye is my middle name --- GRIN)
Anyhow -- I think that they have a ONE WAY suction hose...
And I think that I'm allergic to the "VENOM" they spit out - in order to get into the skin - cause I get golfball size bumps when I get bitten.
Still --- I just don't see it happening - or the whole world would be dead by now - with all of the diseases that are out there - and with how many folks get bitten.
It could be bacterial - but I don't see cross species passing of viral diseases through mosquitoes...
Although - they do spread west nile ---- or so I've heard.
Meki
I'm not sure about this, but my husband and I have been sleeping in the same room, surely being bitten my the same mosquitoes zillion times. In places like Indonesia and Africa. He is HCV negative. My kids have been bitten by the same mozzies as me, since they were small in Indo....
I had read years ago that it can not be spread by "Skeeters". However that never set well with me. Take this hypothetical scenario: a mosquito lands on you and starts to suck up your blood and you swat at him and he flies away only to land on someone else. Now he begins to suck that persons blood only they swat him and squish him flat. In the process of getting squashed he injects everything in his little gullet into that person. There would just seem be no way that there is a 0% chance of that person not getting infected. Not in my book anyway.
A Chinese study was done where they feed mosquitos infected blood (HCV) and it was detected in the mosquito's however there was no evidence of them transmitting it? Here is a link http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=88344
So from what I can see the chances are extremely minimal but not impossible. That of course is just my opinion and not a scientific fact. Just being the fact that most people walk around for years without even knowing they have it and some never know where they got it from I just do not see where there could be any statistical evidence to say one way or the other.
I would be curious to see what others think or know about it.
Nope... Or everyone in the world would have it.