There is a fear that a mosquito who bitten an HIV-positive person can convey the infection of his next victim. We decided to check whether this method of transmitting infection is possible.

According to survey Izvestia every sixth Russian is sure that HIV can be infected through mosquito bites. Experts in various media regularly answer questions of worried citizens: such publications were in "Arguments and facts", Lenta.ru, "Such things".

HIV - human immunodeficiency virus - refers to retroviruses. It causes HIV infection in humans-a slowly progressive disease, as a result of which, in the absence of special therapy, the syndrome of acquired immune deficiency (AIDS) develops. Scientists Installedthat the virus formed at the end of the XIX or at the beginning of the XX century, and then somehow transmitted From monkeys to man.

The earliest documented sample of HIV in humans was discovered In 1959, in the blood sample of a British sailor. Robert Reiford, a teenager from Missouri, counts zero patients in the USA. Presumably (Robert himself denied this), he was engaged in homosexual prostitution. The symptoms of his disease were recorded in 1966, and in 1969 the teenager died. Then the doctors could not establish the exact cause of his death, indicating instead of the diagnosis "the loss of vitality." The laboratory samples of its fabrics, unfortunately, were destroyed in 2005 due to the riot of the elements during a hurricane Catherine.

The HIV epidemic began in Africa south of the Sahara desert in the 1970s. By data WHO, in 2019 in the world there were approximately 38 million people living with HIV.

The human immunodeficiency virus was simultaneously Open In 1983, at the Pasteur Institute Luc Montaine and at the National Institute of Cancer in the United States Robert Gallo. In 2008, Luke Montaine, along with his colleague Francoise Barr-Sinussi received The Nobel Prize in the field of physiology or medicine "For opening a human immunodeficiency virus."

To date Installedthat the virus is transmitted through the damaged or intact mucous membrane, when the damaged skin of a healthy person with the biological fluids of the infected (blood, pre -seed fluid, sperm, the secret of the vagina, and breast milk) is in contact). The transfer of the virus can occur with vaginal, anal and oral sex, when using syringes with infected needles, blood transfusion, during pregnancy and childbirth, during breastfeeding (and, both from a nursing woman to a child, and vice versa). According to experts, the virus is not transmitted With kisses, since the enzymes of saliva destroy virions. Books of blood -sucking insects are also not represent Dangers. There are several explanations for this.

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Firstly, with a bite, the insect does not inject someone else's blood bitten, but sucks it. Mosquito probe consists of Of the six tubes, four of which a mosquito uses for a puncture of the skin, one to introduce saliva into the skin with special enzymes, and another for the absorption of the blood of the victim. The movement of the liquid in this tube occurs only in one direction: inside the body of the insect. Blood that can sometimes be seen around the wound is not the previous victim, but our own.

Secondly, the human immunodeficiency virus is also called because it is able to live only in the human body. For replication to the virus necessary Contact special cells-T-lymphocytes that humans have, but are absent in the digestive tract in the blood-sucking insect. Mosquito, drunk with HIV-infected blood, completely processes The virus along with another food.

Thirdly, HIV is present in the blood infected in the quantities insufficient for infection in this way. By calculations Scientists, in order to introduce a healthy concentration of the virus to the body of a healthy person, would require 10 million mosquitoes that would have bitten a person with HIV infection before.

However, if we talk not only about mosquitoes, but about all blood -sucking insects, the situation is somewhat changed. Eat assumptionsthat the fly Stomoxys Calcitrans - Autumn Lada - could become the same insect that initially transmitted the virus from monkeys to man. The digestive system of this fly is arranged in a slightly different way: the animal does not digest the blood drunk completely, but preserves part of it in a special “pocket” in the intestines, which does not contain digestive enzymes. At the next bite, this flush stored in reserve can spit the bite to the place. Not all scientists agree with this hypothesis. Professor David Maybi from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine He thinks: “This is an interesting theory and nothing more. The main thing now is to practice safe sex, and not worry about what fly bit you. ”

Thus, the transmission of HIV infection for a mosquito bite is impossible for many reasons. Which does not cancel the need to use anti -mosquito nets and repellents, since mosquitoes Contact Malaria, yellow fever, zika fever and dirofilariasis.