Human travelers are more prone to import diseases than mosquitoes

Publish Date : 2017-07-20

According to researchers, human travelers are much more prone to import diseases like dengue, malaria, yellow fever and Zika than mosquitoes to different parts of the globe through the airplane.

Based on the statistic study about number of mosquitoes get onto commercial flight, number of infected mosquitoes amongst them along with how many endure enough at the destination to infect someone, the research study estimates that the human travelers are 1 thousand times more prone to spread P. falciparum parasite that stimulates malaria and two hundred times more prone to transmit dengue virus.

Michael Johansson who is a biologist at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Division of Vector-Borne Diseases in San Juan, Puerto Rico and also senior author of the research study said that recently, infection causing agent such as the Chikungunya and Zika virus has pulled in plenty of interest and are surfacing in human travelers.

The authors note down in PLoS Neglected Tropical illnesses that the insects that carry diseases, like mosquitoes, have been brought in through aircraft to new geographical areas where they haven’t lived earlier. Airports have insect elimination policies mandatory as per prescribed by the United Nation’s International Health Regulations. Airports normally use insecticides, a chemical to kill insects to try to eliminate insects in conveyor belts, containers, cargo, and bags, but contagions still arise.

Michael Johansson stated in an interview that there are prolonged insect elimination policies, which are aimed at mosquito taxonomic group and agricultural bugs and insects. However, the focus needs to be shifted on prevention of the import and spread of the infection via humans.

The research team evaluated settings for the increased spread of mosquito-worn illnesses, concentrating on areas where widespread of dengue or malaria occurred, and places where these diseases are not endemic, but circumstances are encouraging for them to set up themselves.

Based on earlier period analyzes, the researchers computed a number of mosquitoes that would probably be on any particular flight, and a number of infected ones with the disease. For example, the maximum mosquitoes ever found on a flight in earlier research are seventeen Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, the key transmitters of malaria disease. For the recent study, they projected a 0.25 possibility of any mosquito on a particular flight, or let’s say that on average of 1 mosquito is there on every 4th flight.

They have also figured out the contamination rates for human travelers, the probability of mosquito bites at the destination and likelihood of disease spread to a new individual.

Even in the mosquito absence or disinfection on flights, human passengers were 100 times more prone to transmit the diseases via travel. Overall, the chances that a flight traveling from a heavy mosquito area would cause infection were tremendously small.

Michael Johansson added that result was as expected but they were astonished by the extent. They didn’t imagine it would be so evident, and this was concentrating on the worst-case scenes.

The study authors concluded that future researches should concentrate on prevention of human transmission. Disinsection Policies probably won’t work.

Moritz Kraemer, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, stated that there may be a misperception about how infectious agent spread worldwide, with the elevation in traveling around the globe, contagious diseases transmit rapidly from one place to another.

Moritz Kraemer, who wasn’t part of this recent study team, has lately released a research study in the journal Nature concerning the numerous instaurations of Zika virus to Florida, advises that maps of the geographical areas where people are infected should be created and particular airports must target disease transmission via human travelers. The concerning Directionality and Pathways are also important.

He further added that one part which is still hard to evaluate is those travelers who are at uppermost risk of infection. The most stimulating thing about this research study is that it demonstrates the deviations between malaria and dengue as well as the threat of mosquito against human-driven transmission.