Coronavirus: Mosquitoes cannot give humans COVID-19, first study on subject finds

Mosquitoes cannot transmit the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the deadly COVID-19 disease, to humans, according to the first dedicated study on the subject.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, found that the virus cannot replicate in three common types of mosquitoes and therefore cannot be transmitted to humans even if the mosquitoes feast on an infected human.

"We have demonstrated that even under extreme conditions, SARS-CoV-2 virus is unable to replicate in these mosquitoes and therefore cannot be transmitted to people even in the unlikely event that a mosquito fed upon a viremic host," the study’s authors wrote.

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The study supports statements made by the World Health Organization (WHO) that mosquitoes could not pass the disease to humans.

"While the World Health Organization (WHO) has definitively stated that mosquitoes cannot transmit the virus, our study is the first to provide conclusive data supporting the theory," said Stephen Higgs, one of the researchers on the study from Kansas State University in the US.
The relationship between animals and coronavirus remains unclear.

One theory for the outbreak of the global pandemic is that it jumped from an infected bat to a human in a wet market in Wuhan, China.

There have also been reports of tigers, cats, and dogs contracting the virus, but these cases have been minimal considering the extent of the spread of the virus among humans.

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