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Albertan Health Experts Squash Rumours That Mosquitoes Can Spread COVID-19
COVID-19 spreads in lungs, not blood.
Syed Ali | Unsplash Alberta Newsroom | Flickr
Skeeters are buzzing back this summer but Albertan doctors say they're unlikely to give you the novel coronavirus. Based on what we know currently, it appears that mosquitoes don't transmit COVID-19. Rather, the novel coronavirus spreads through other ways, say experts.
According to the University of Calgary's Director of Research and Innovation in the Department of Critical Care Medicine, Dr. Kirsten Fiest, there's no evidence that mosquitoes can spread the novel coronavirus.
"To my knowledge, transmission of COVID-19 through mosquitos is not possible," she wrote to Narcity. "Specifically, there is no scientific evidence to suggest transmission can (or would) occur this way."
Alberta's chief medical officer, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, agrees. In a tweet from Saturday, May 23, she swatted away rumours that mosquitos are able to spread COVID-19.
She's received a few questions about it already. She said, "To date, there is no information or evidence that suggests #COVID19AB is transmitted by mosquitoes."
The World Health Organization (WHO) gave a more definitive answer, writing "the new coronavirus CANNOT be transmitted through mosquito bites."
Instead, Hinshaw and the WHO say COVID-19 is a respiratory disease "spread through droplets in an infected person's saliva/nasal discharge when they cough, sneeze, or talk," Hinshaw wrote on Twitter.
"The evidence does support that the majority of transmission is person to person," wrote Fiest.
There are viruses that can be spread through mosquitoes — famously the West Nile virus or Dengue fever, according to the WHO — but it's unlikely that the novel coronavirus is one of them.
In order for mosquitoes to spread disease, the virus must be in the blood of the person they feed on, according to MSN Health. But in humans, the novel coronavirus mostly stays in the lungs and respiratory tract.
To prevent the spread of COVID-19, the WHO says to wash your hands with soap and water or hand sanitizer and to avoid people coughing or sneezing.
Canada also recently recommended the use of non-medical masks in situations when you're unable to keep a two-metre distance from others.
As summer comes and mosquitoes return with a vengeance, you can take comfort that the worst outcome you'll likely get is an itchy bump and nothing more.