Mosquitoes are the most dangerous animal there is for humans, they kill about 700 thousand people a year and cause about 300 thousand cases of disease. They are the biggest public health problem we have in the world ». This was stated by Andrea Crisanti, director of the Molecular Medicine department of the University of Padua, speaking today on the sidelines of the event “The time of health“, organized by Corriere della Sera at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology in Milan.
In fact, Crisanti, led by teams of international researchers, has shown that it is possible to suppress mosquitoes that transmit malaria. “This is a technology that can be exported to other species of mosquitoes and insects, which are responsible for 25% of the losses in the agricultural sector,” added the professor, who specified that the aim of the research is not that to go and hit the annoying, but harmless insects, which with their bites often ruin our summer days, but to “selectively attack only the mosquitoes that transmit diseases”.
One of these is the so-called korean mosquito which, according to Crisanti, «has a great ability to adapt to the environment and is able to multiply even in cold climates and is potentially capable of transmitting some viral diseases such as encephalitis. It could also have come down to us, but fortunately in Italy there are no animals infected with the viruses that this mosquito can transmit and therefore in fact it is not dangerous ».
To those who asked him finally, if this type of mosquito could also spreading Covid 19, Crisanti was categorical: «Absolutely not. Mosquitoes are not mail bags that carry a virus or parasite from one organism to another. Only a few mosquitoes are able to act as vectors, only about fifty species out of 3,500 and fortunately most of these are not in Italy ».