ZIKA MOSQUITO CAN TRANSMIT 3 VIRUSES AT ONCE

Washington, May 20: Aedes aegypti, the primary mosquito that carries Zika virus, may also transmit chikungunya and dengue viruses with one bite, a new study has found.

The findings shed new light on what is known as a co-infection, which scientists say is not yet fully understood and may be fairly common in areas experiencing outbreaks. “A mosquito, in theory, could give you multiple viruses at once,” said Claudia Ruckert, post-doctoral researcher at Colorado State University in the US.

The team infected mosquitoes in the lab with multiple kinds of viruses to learn more about the transmission of more than one infection from a single bite. The researchers found that mosquitoes in the lab can transmit all three viruses simultaneously, although this is likely to be very rare. — PTI