How does the mosquito spread the diseases that it carries?
It has been found that mosquitoes spread the diseases that it carries through a cycle. The cycle is known as the mosquito/bird cycle. The mosquito and the bird serve as host reservoirs, but humans and animals may be accidental end points. A bird-mosquito cycle keeps the transmission of the diseases going. The infected bird becomes immune in days, but another mosquito may feed on the bird when it is infectious. In the mosquito, the virus increases as much as a million-fold until it becomes a lethal injection. As the season progresses, mosquitoes are increasingly attracted to warm-blooded mammals such as horses and humans. These are “accidental” or “dead-end” hosts.
