Mankind’s Most Fearsome Enemy

by Chris Delker

Whine. Slap. Itch. Scratch.

For many people, that 4-word cycle is the result of an encounter with a mosquito. The incredibly annoying, persistent, high-pitched whine. The SLAP when you try to get the skeeter that’s already gotten you. The itching welt. And the endless scratching.

For many of us, mosquitoes are an annoyance. An annoyance that can ruin a session of gardening, spoil an outdoors cookout or ruin a backyard party. A pesky plague that can transform a camping trip from a bucolic commune with nature to a scramble for refuge behind mosquito netting and smelly repellents. And remember that fishing trip where the mosquitoes considered you to be the bait at the end of the pole?

But in truth, mosquitoes are much more than just a simple annoyance.

Mankind’s Most Fearsome Enemy?

Some may consider the title of this article to be a bit much. After all, how could a little pesky insect be our worst enemy? Who would believe that?

Several rather large groups of people would be quite glad to chime in with their opinion of the mosquito. They’d be happy to confirm that the mosquito is indeed our worst enemy. They wouldn’t mind at all telling you about how their own personal experiences with mosquitoes has convinced them of its danger.

The groups of people who would be glad to speak out against the mosquito include:

The 500 million who were infected with malaria last year
The 50 million who were infected with dengue fever last year
The 200,000 who were infected with yellow fever last year

Additional groups would include those who were infected with illnesses such as West Nile virus, eastern equine encephalitis, St. Louis encephalitis, and many other debilitating and deadly diseases.

The vast number of people who were stricken with these terrible diseases last year have 2 things in common: 1) Their illness was contracted through a mosquito bite 2) Millions of them are dead.

It’s not known for certain how many people are killed worldwide by mosquito transmitted diseases, but the number is huge. An estimated 3 million are killed by malaria alone.

A Pesky Little Insect…

Yes, mosquitoes are very pesky insects. And those of us to whom the whine-slap-itch-scratch cycle has been the most serious consequence of our encounters with mosquitoes should count ourselves lucky.

Very lucky.

Because hundreds of millions people this year, last year, and every year stretching back beyond the dawning of civilization haven’t been quite so fortunate. Such is the devastation that has been wrought by mankind’s most fearsome enemy, the mosquito.