QUESTION

How many people get malaria by one mosquito?

ANSWER

That is a very interesting question—the answer is that is varies between regions, and also depends on the type of mosquito. It was often believed that female mosquitoes (which feed on blood—males only feed on nectar) required a single blood meal in order to lay eggs and reproduce, and so would feed approximately once per week, infecting a single host each blood meal. However, recent evidence has shown that in many locations, Anopheles mosquitoes will actually take multiple blood meals on a single night, thus potentially being able to infect several hosts per gonotrophic (reproductive) cycle. Even more interestingly, in some studies it appears that mosquitoes infected with Plasmodium are more likely then uninfected mosquitoes to take multiple blood meals, thus suggesting that the parasite is in some way manipulating the feeding behaviour of the vector mosquito in order to facilitate its own transmission!

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