Is it possible, with future adaptations, that mosquitoes could carry the deadly HIV virus?
The HIV virus that produces AIDS in humans does not develop in mosquitoes. If HIV infected blood is taken up by a mosquito the virus is treated like food and digested along with the blood meal. If the mosquito takes a partial blood meal from an HIV positive person and resumes feeding on a non-infected individual, insufficient particles are transferred to initiate a new infection. There has been some concern about whether mosquitoes are capable of transmitting AIDS from an infected person to an uninfected person with future adaptations. Unlike encephalitis viruses and other mosquito-transmitted diseases, the HIV virus that causes AIDS is not able to survive inside the body of the mosquito. Essentially, barring some never-before-seen genetic adaptation, it is virtually impossible that a mosquito could transmit AIDS.
