Zika mosquito may transmit dengue with one bite

New York May 19 (IANS) The primary mosquito that spreads Zika virus -- aedes aegypti -- might also simultaneously transmit chikungunya and dengue viruses with a single bite says a study that sheds new light on co-infection.

A mosquito in theory could give you multiple viruses at once said Claudia Ruckert post-doctoral researcher at Colorado State University in the US.

In the study published in the journal Nature Communications the team infected mosquitoes in the lab with multiple kinds of viruses to learn more about the transmission of more than one infection from a single mosquito bite.

The results showed that mosquitoes in the lab can transmit all three viruses simultaneously although this is likely to be extremely rare in nature.

Dual infections in humans however are fairly common or more common than we would have thought Ruckert added.

Further all the three viruses were found to replicate in a really small area in the mosquito s body.

One virus proved to be dominant and outcompeted the others in the midgut of the mosquito where the infections establish and replicate before being transmitted to humans.

When these mosquitoes get infected with two or three different viruses there s almost no effect that the viruses have on each other in the same mosquito Ruckert said.

However there s no reason to believe that these co-infections are more severe than being infected with one virus at a time.

There s no strong evidence that co-infection of humans results in infections that are clinically more severe Ruckert said.

On the other hand there might be some indications but it is still fairly unknown what the effect is from co-infection she stated.

In addition it is also likely that co-infections in humans are significantly under-diagnosed the researchers noted.

--IANS
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