Why can a mosquito spread a disease like malaria, but not aids?
There are diseases that mosquitos transmit, but TB, AIDS, and Herpes are not among them. First, a mosquito does not infect the “next” person she bites. When the mosquito “bites” she injects a certain saliva under the skin to prevent clotting the blood. If the blood clotted, it would clog her feeding tube. After taking her blood meal, her feeding tube is wiped clean of blood and she rests for a few hours to digest it, thereby allowing germs on the tube to die. Malaria, dengue fever, and west nile are carried because they actually develop inside the mosquito. The parasite Plasmodium (for malaria) has a host inside the human, and another host inside the mosquito. (I can send you the whole biology chapter if you want it.) The parasite develops inside the mosquito and is then sent to the salivary glands, where it is passed on to the next human in that saliva — about 8 hours after biting the first malaria-infected human. This is not actually by using germs in the feeding tube, but by using
