The pandemic coincides with the long rainy season in Kenya. Rain increases mosquito breeding sites, vector density and thus transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.
Researchers discovered a cream could stop the spread of deadly viruses from mosquitoes.
frank60/ Shutterstock
Prolonged rains increase the amount of stagnant water in the environment in which mosquitoes breed. This increases the risk of mosquito-borne diseases.
Although yellow fever does not currently exist in Australia, the species Aedes aegypti - which can transmit the disease - is found widely across northern Queensland. The virus remains a global health concern, but citizen scientists could help prevent its spread.
Simon Kutcher/flickr
Nuisance-biting and mosquito-borne disease are ongoing concerns for health authorities. But an effective citizen science program is now showing how all of us can help beat the bite of mozzies.
Mosquitoes are one of the deadliest creatures because they are carriers for many lethal viruses.
Shutterstock
There’s a big market for new treatments for TB, malaria and other ailments. But most of these diseases afflict low-income people unable to pay for medicine.
Australia’s dengue cases are usually limited to far north Queensland.
Shutterstock
Mosquito-borne dengue virus returned to central Queensland after being absent for decades. But while most Australian cases involve travellers, this one is locally acquired.
We might not be able to use common insecticides to kill mosquitoes that arrive from other countries.
from www.shutterstock.com
Been on a tropical holiday? You might have brought home more than just a new sarong and extra colour in your cheeks – perhaps a mosquito that spreads dengue, or another known as ‘the BBQ stopper’.
A female Anopheles stephensi mosquito bites a human to get a blood meal through its pointed proboscis. A droplet of blood is expelled from the abdomen after having engorged itself.
Jim Gathany/Wikimedia Commons
Researchers are exploring genetic forms of population control called gene drives that spread traits faster that happens naturally. The goal is to curb mosquito-borne diseases like malaria.
View of Taichung City, Taiwan, behind a mosquito net.
Alan Picard / Shutterstock.com
Genetically modified mosquitoes breed fear and suspicion, especially since the research happens behind closed doors, away from the public. Now scientists and architects are trying to change that model.
Warmer temperatures could lead to more zones of the country that make good breeding sites for mosquitoes.
Apichart Meesri / Shutterstock.com
Is our changing climate making regions of the US more suitable for ticks and mosquitoes that spread diseases? Or is the climate changing human physiology making us more vulnerable?
More than 3.9 billion people live in regions where the Aedes aegypti mosquito is present. This species transmits Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever.
mycteria/Shutterstock.com
For several billion people mosquitoes are more than a nuisance – they transmit deadly diseases. Now genetic modification may prove the most effective defense against the mosquito, preventing disease.
Mosquitoes are picky about who they bite but it’s not actually “us” that they’re smelling when they choose their next meal…
Psorophora ferox female, a potential vector for Madariaga virus. Photo taken on Heritage Island, Anacostia River, in Washington, D.C., June 30, 2012.
Wikimedia Commons
The collapse of Venezuela’s public health system has terrible consequences inside the country, but it also is giving rise to mosquito-borne viruses that could spread to nearby countries.
A female deer tick on a piece of straw.
Steve Ellingson/Shutterstock.com
Olivier Telle, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
The spread of infectious diseases such as chikungunya is closely linked to urban mobility, yet small Indian cities could play a crucial role in the resilience process.
In the future, traps for mosquito that spread the dengue and chikungunya virus could be made from the carbon dioxide in human breathe as well as body odour.
Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes viewed through a microscope in Broward County, Florida, in June 2016.
AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Vast amounts of standing water in Houston and other hurricane-flooded areas are dangerous not only because of toxins. The water is a dangerous breeding ground for mosquitoes that transmit Zika.
Principal Medical Scientist and Head of Laboratory for Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring and Malaria Operational Research, National Institute for Communicable Diseases