Do mosquitoes transmit AIDS? More than 100 years ago, mosquitoes were discovered to transmit disease.

History:

More than 100 years ago, mosquitoes were discovered to transmit disease. Dozens of infectious diseases known to be transmitted by mosquitoes include malaria, yellow fever, filariasis, Japanese encephalitis, dengue fever and so on. Since blood-sucking mosquitoes can transmit so many diseases, can it spread AIDS?

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An adult female mosquito is piercing the human skin!

AIDS is called "acquired immunodeficiency syndrome", abbreviated as AIDS, which is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). When HIV enters the human body, it infects the body's defense cells and destroys the immune system, making the body's resistance to pathogenic microorganisms and tumors greatly reduced.

HIV virus in the blood

HIV, like hepatitis B virus, is mainly transmitted through three routes: mother-to-child, sexual contact and blood. The blood route, in particular, not only can transfusions of HIV-containing blood products lead to infection, but also the sharing of HIV-contaminated needles, needles or other sharp equipment can lead to HIV transmission. In this way, it is possible for mosquitoes that travel through the population to suck blood to healthy people after biting AIDS patients.

It's not that simple.

The mouthparts of mosquitoes are not like syringes, and when mosquitoes pierce the mouthparts into the skin of the bite target, the blood will only be inhaled into the mosquito in one direction, and will not be "injected" into the human body by the mosquito. Most diseases that mosquitoes can transmit are caused by mosquitoes "vomiting saliva" when they bite. This means that the pathogen must be able to survive in the mosquito and occupy the mosquito's salivary glands, and the saliva that the mosquito "vomits" is contagious. For example, malaria is caused by malaria parasites, and malaria parasites can survive in mosquitoes for 9~12 days. When mosquitoes suck blood, saliva containing the parasite can contaminate the bite site, causing malaria transmission.

This is not the case with HIV.

HIV cannot survive in mosquitoes, and after mosquitoes suck blood, HIV is quickly destroyed by digestive enzymes in mosquitoes, and naturally cannot enter the salivary glands of mosquitoes. In this way, the saliva vomited by mosquitoes does not contain HIV, and they cannot infect new objects.

Seeing this, you may still have questions: although the vomit of mosquitoes does not contain HIV, the mosquito's blood-sucking "needle" may still be stained with HIV, and these HIV are pierced into the human body when the mosquito sucks blood, won't it lead to HIV transmission? In addition, if mosquitoes are slapped to death when they suck blood, can't the HIV that has not been destroyed after being inhaled also lead to HIV transmission?

In fact, in order for the human body to be infected, the number of pathogenic microorganisms must reach a certain scale. Different diseases vary in scale. For example, to make people get dysentery, only a few dysentery bacilli are enough, but AIDS is not the same as dysentery. Even if there is residual HIV on the mosquito mouthparts, the amount is extremely small, far from the scale of causing human infection. Data analysis shows that for a healthy person to be infected with HIV, it may take tens of millions of mosquitoes that have just bitten AIDS patients. Even if a mosquito is killed when bitten, the amount of HIV in its body is still not enough to cause infection. As a result, not a single case of HIV infection due to mosquito bites has been reported.

Well, now the truth is out: mosquitoes, as abhorrent as they are, do not spread AIDS.

Dr. Wei: The "cocktail therapy" of AIDS 

HIV is very cunning and is prone to structural and functional changes after invading the human body, which makes it very difficult to treat AIDS. A single antiviral drug can easily induce HIV to become resistant and become less effective. In 1996, American scientist He Dayi founded "Cocktail Therapy". Its essence is the combination of multiple antiviral drugs for multiple links of HIV infection. In this way, not only can it effectively kill HIV, but also suppress HIV drug resistance to the greatest extent. "Cocktail therapy" has greatly improved the therapeutic effect of AIDS.

Are HIV and AIDS the same virus?

HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus, also known as HIV, and HIV is the causative agent of AIDS. AIDS, short for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, also known as AIDS, is a disease, not a virus.

Usually patients will have an acute phase 2-4 weeks after HIV infection, but not all patients will occur, and patients in the acute phase will present with nonspecific fever, sore throat, headache, or muscle and joint aches and other symptoms, and a small number of patients may also have oral candidal infection. As the disease progresses, the patient will enter a symptom-free period, when the HIV virus replicates in the body, gradually destroying immune cells, and the patient has no obvious clinical symptoms. If HIV infection is detected early, using cocktail therapy that suppresses HIV virus, the asymptomatic period can exist for a long time, or even last for life, if the asymptomatic period HIV virus is not effectively controlled, it will continue to replicate in the body, resulting in a large number of immune cell destruction, patients will gradually enter the pre-AIDS stage, manifested as fatigue, night sweats, weight loss and other symptoms, when T lymphocytes drop below 200U/L, As soon as the patient enters the AIDS stage, a variety of infections and tumors may occur.

People infected with HIV do not necessarily become AIDS patients, may be latent for life, called HIV carriers, but AIDS patients must have HIV in their bodies. It should be noted that HIV virus is contagious, and the modes of transmission include sexual transmission, blood transmission, mother-to-child transmission, etc

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