Sharing syringes is one of the means of transmission of the HIV virus. My question is ... Can a mosquito bite be considered a means of transmission the HIV virus between persons?
No. Mosquitoes do not transmit HIV. Neither do ticks or most other biting insects. Horse flies have been known to transmit Equine Infectious Anemia Virus (another lentivirus) from one horse to another, but only over short distances like the same fly bites two horses within 200 yards of each other so wet fresh blood is carried on the fly mouth. But other than this, I am not aware of any insect vectored lentivirus transmission.
I agree with Brian absolutely
Think how many people will be infected in the world in this case especially in tropical area
Risk zero does not exist of course but in this case Brian wrote an exhaustive answer
I agree with you Mr. Massimo Ciccozzi , but I want to know why HIV is not transmitted by mosquito bites. Especially both of Syringe and proboscis of mosquitoes have the ability to penetrate the human body.
I recently read about HIV and concluded the following:
transmission of HIV virus by sharing syringes is called mechanical transmission of a pathogen, and that's not how mosquito-borne illnesses work.
Consider malaria, which is spread by mosquito. When mosquitoes take in malaria-infected blood, the parasites that cause malaria leave the ingested blood and infect the mosquito's own body. Specifically, they go into the mosquito's salivary glands. When the mosquito takes blood from another human, it does not inject the blood it already consumed, but does inject some saliva to help it feed. The malaria parasite is in the saliva, and that's how the next human gets infected.
AIDS is spread by a virus that lives inside white blood cells and other body fluids. It cannot leave the blood and infect the mosquito's saliva, or any other part of the mosquito. If a mosquito picks up blood from an HIV+ person, the virus stays in the stomach and gets digested or eliminated. The virus dies after a few minutes away from a human body, so even if a stray viron was on the tip of the mosquitoes proboscis, it would die by the time the mosquito feeds again.
Shared needles are different. One, they take up a MUCH larger quantity of blood than a mosquito, meaning much more HIV. The drop of blood on the tip of a needle is probably more than what a mosquito consumes. Two, some blood probably remains in a used needle even if you think you depressed the plunger all the way. Three and most importantly, a mosquito sucks up one fluid (blood) into one container (stomach) and injects another fluid (saliva) from another container (salivary glands). The needle sucks up and injects blood through the same tube. That's why sharing needles is so dangerous.
Thank you for your answering Mohanad Hazim, but the transimission of HIV do not restricted to sex only, and there are several way for transimission of HIV which include damage skin, wounds, or mucous membranes, kissing if one or both partners have sores or bleeding gums , blood transfering , certain body fluids from a person who has HIV. These fluids are (blood, semen, pre-seminal fluids, rectal fluids, vaginal fluids, and breast milk. ) or by sharing injection drug equipment, such as needles, with someone who has HIV.
Thank you for answering Md Nazmul Hossain , Mohanad Hazim .. Best regards
No, it doesn't. If the blood a moskito sucks up on the first bite were infected with HIV, the virus would be degraded in the digestive tract of the insect. After all, a virus is just a tasty bite of protein, lipid and nucleic acid ;-)
This is different from, say, malaria, where the parasites actively move from the digestive tract to the saliva glands, to be injected into the next victim. This movement is associated with cell division (look up the life cycle of Plasmodium) , which HIV (as virus) cannot do outside its target cell.
It is not possible also maybe in hundred year of evolution can be but i believe that if it can more than 80% of population in the world should be infected
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