The malarial mosquito is the carrier of the most dangerous disease

Undoubtedly, everyone has heard of such a dangerous disease as malaria and its carriers of malarial mosquitoes. We even read about this disease in school books. But earlier, if I ever encountered the word "malaria", then instantly a picture appeared in my head from a textbook on history or geography. A huge number of insects, exhausting heat, palms, black people living in inhuman conditions and now and then dying of terrible diseases.

And here the end of the past and the beginning of this century is marked by an increase in the number of outbreaks of malaria precisely in our latitudes.

How did it happen? Why? Do malaria mosquitoes live in our country? How not to become a hostage to this most dangerous disease, which only up to 8 million people in pre-revolutionary Russia annually?

Well, let's start in order. The main reason preventing the occurrence of the disease in the countries of Asia and Africa (namely, where this insect predominantly lives) is the acute shortage of qualified entomologists and the means necessary for the purchase and manufacture of preparations aimed at the destruction of malarial mosquitoes.

The malarial mosquito, or Anopheles in Latin, refers to the category of insects choosing a moist and warm environment. And in summer such weather conditions are created practically in all corners of the globe. Even in huge cities, every year clouds of mosquitoes breed, not to mention marshes, forests and ponds.

So what is the difference between a mosquito malaria and an ordinary mosquito? Note immediately that neither in appearance nor in structure you will not be able to recognize it. But the size of the malarial mosquito exceeds the usual 2 or even 3 times.

A hungry female, and, as is known, only they bite, able to locate their victim at a distance of up to 3 meters.

It is hard to imagine that such a small and seemingly completely defenseless and awkward insect is able to absorb the volume of blood that exceeds its own weight. In the blood that got into the body of a malarial mosquito, eggs are formed and ripen, about 150-200 pieces at a time. And from them, in their turn, larvae of the new peddlers of the disease appear very soon.

It is interesting to note that the next time the female of a malarial mosquito becomes aggressive only after she manages to lay eggs. Initially, the parasite will develop only in the stomach of the "sick" mosquito, but gradually it will spread throughout the body, eventually reaching the salivary glands. And then the malarial mosquito will turn into the carrier of the most dangerous disease

In general, the life span of this insect is only two months. Most of the time, the female feeds on nectar, which it collects from flowers. But in the "predator" is transformed only before laying eggs. Particularly active malarial mosquitoes become in the evening and at night. They dozens, or even hundreds, of swarming in the air in a damp area or over a pond.

As a rule, the question arises as to how each year more and more new foci of malaria appear, if the malarial mosquito itself lives only for two months, after which it dies, which means that most of the year new larvae are not delayed at all?

The whole point is that no living organism, other than a person, is sick with malaria, i.e. A year later and with the onset of favorable weather conditions, malarial mosquitoes take infection from sick people and transfer it to healthy. And so the circle closes: people with malaria "infect" mosquitoes, and those in turn, very quickly find new victims.

Of course, neither the medicine nor the chemical industry is standing still. And today the forces of modern scientists are aimed at combating both the malaria mosquitoes themselves and the consequences of their bites.