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New case emerging for Culex mosquito as unexpected Zika spreader
Early data from new lab tests reopen question of non-Aedes vectors
BY SUSAN MILIUS 11:49AM, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016
ORLANDO, Fla. ? ...
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At the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Tong-Yan Zhao found the virus peaking in the house mosquitoes eight days after their first contaminated drink.
From Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada, Fiona Hunter has found signs that 11 out of 50 wild-caught Culex pipiens pipiens mosquitoes picked up the virus somewhere on their bodies. So far, she has completely analyzed one mosquito and reports that the virus was indeed in its saliva.
These positive results contradict Culex tests at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Those tests, with U.S. mosquitoes, found no evidence that C. quinquefasciatus can pick up and pass along a Zika infection, says study coauthor Scott Weaver. Stephen Higgs of Kansas State University in Manhattan and his colleagues got similar results. ?We?re pretty good at infecting mosquitoes,? Higgs says, so he muses over whether certain virus strains won?t infect mosquitoes from particular places.
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Early data from new lab tests reopen question of non-Aedes vectors
BY SUSAN MILIUS 11:49AM, SEPTEMBER 28, 2016
ORLANDO, Fla. ? ...
...
At the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Tong-Yan Zhao found the virus peaking in the house mosquitoes eight days after their first contaminated drink.
From Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada, Fiona Hunter has found signs that 11 out of 50 wild-caught Culex pipiens pipiens mosquitoes picked up the virus somewhere on their bodies. So far, she has completely analyzed one mosquito and reports that the virus was indeed in its saliva.
These positive results contradict Culex tests at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Those tests, with U.S. mosquitoes, found no evidence that C. quinquefasciatus can pick up and pass along a Zika infection, says study coauthor Scott Weaver. Stephen Higgs of Kansas State University in Manhattan and his colleagues got similar results. ?We?re pretty good at infecting mosquitoes,? Higgs says, so he muses over whether certain virus strains won?t infect mosquitoes from particular places.
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