My most profound enlightenment during COVID came from reading the book Virus Mania by Englebrecht et al. It drew my attention to the work of Drs Sam and Mark Bailey, Mike Stone, Stefan Lanka and others. This broad topic is well covered by others more expert than me and outside the scope of my column.
But in common with malaria, some viral illnesses are associated with mosquitos and other biting insects. Dengue, Zika and West Nile virus are probably best known. Disease transmission by mosquito is questionable for two reasons – the small aliquot of infected material that could be spread by mosquito bites and the questionable infective nature of viruses themselves.
Two other diseases have been in the news over the last two weeks. Last week News-medical dot net published an ebook on infectious diseases that included an article on Oropouche virus, that is supposedly transmitted through bites from infected Culicoides paraensis biting midges and Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitos. Some of the common symptoms include fever, chills, headache, and myalgia that persist for two to seven days.
And this week BBC reported 7,000 cases of chikungunya virus in China. I previously described chikungunya, whose symptoms are fever and joint pain. This outbreak is being tackled by the Chinese authorities with similar enthusiasm they showed for the three years they tackled COVID. During COVID China implemented severe restrictions, including forcing people into quarantine camps and sealing residential buildings and whole neighbourhoods on short notice for days or even weeks.
In Foshan city, which has been hit the hardest, chikungunya patients must stay in hospital, in beds protected with mosquito nets. They can only be discharged after they test negative or at the end of a week-long stay.
12 other cities in the southern Guangdong province have reported infections. Nearly 3,000 cases were reported in the last week alone. Authorities have instructed residents to remove stagnant water in their homes, such as in flowerpots (see picture), coffee machines or spare bottles – and warned of fines up to 10,000 yuan ($1,400) if they don’t do this. They are also releasing giant “elephant mosquitos” that can devour smaller, chikungunya-spreading bugs; and an army of mosquito-eating fish. Last week, officials in Foshan released 5,000 of these larvae-eating fish into the city’s lakes. In parts of the city, they are even flying drones to detect sources of stagnant water.
Some people have compared these measures to those imposed during the pandemic, and questioned their necessity. This is especially so considering how dubious the link of chikungunya to mosquitos is.