When Humans Are Poisonous To Mosquitoes There is a method of making humans poisonous to mosquitoes.

In fact, scientists and doctors have suspected that it was possible to make us poisonous to mosquito es for 25 years, but there has not been enough evidence to prove it. Now scienti sts are more sure of the concept. The drug that is so toxic to mosquitoes is to be discovered in a comparatively c heap tablet that has been used for deworming for 25 years. These tablets are pas sed out to individuals who are at danger of river blindness (Onchocerciasis) whi ch is caused by infection by Onchocerca volvulus - a parasitic roundworm discove red in fast-flowing rivers chiefly in Central and West Africa. The drug, called ivermectin or Mectizan, that kills the worms also kills mosquit oes, but it has a fairly short effective time span, which is one of the factors why its value for controlling mosquitoes has long been suspected but never confi rmed. There is a problem though - there just has to be one, does there not? The use of ivermectin to control mosquito populations can only be truly effective if every body in the region starts taking the tablets at the same time and keeps taking t hem. The pills are effective for about a month, so everyone in a whole village w ould have to take a pill on, say, the first of every month. This does not seem like much of a problem, but scientists, doctors and aid worke rs say that it is in fact a nightmare trying to get a thousand or even thousands of people to follow an annual campaign against such a serious threat as river b lindness. The drug itself has been in use against river blindness for 25 years already so it is well-known to be safe, although it can cause death in very rare incidents. Therefore, safety is not an an issue and villagers are not frightened of taking it. The latest tests were carried out by scientists from Senegal and Colorado State University and their results were printed in the American Journal of Tropical Me dicine and Hygiene. The article reports that the scientists vacuumed the mosquit oes off the walls of huts in three villages where people had taken ivermectin an d three where they had not. There were 80% fewer malarial mosquitoes in the villages where the inhabitants h ad taken ivermectin. This is because the drug was killing the mosquitoes off at a much earlier age than is typical and it is normally only older mosquitoes that carry malaria because they have to be infected by a human host first. Although the drug is fairly cheap, at the moment it is handed out one time a yea r during the worst season for the parasitic roundworm that causes river blindnes s. If it were to be used successfully to control mosquitoes, it would have to be distributed a dozen times more often, which would present a colossal drain on a ll resources financial, distributional and human. Another objection to this procedure of treatment for mosquitoes is that to do it in the right manner, everybody would have to get screened for infection by loa loa worms, because the drug also kills them, but as they die they can clog tiny blood vessels which can lead to coma and death. This would mean taking blood fro m millions and millions of individuals and testing for loa loa. Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several subjects, but is currentl y concerned with finding <a href="http://gettingridofmosquitobites.com/naturalremedies-for-mosquito-bites.html">natural remedies for mosquito bites</a>. If yo

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