In a new study, researchers confirmed that the COVID-19 virus cannot be transmitted to people by mosquitoes.
The research was conducted by a team at Kansas State University.
The study provided the first experimental research on the capacity of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, to infect and be transmitted by mosquitoes.
While the World Health Organization has definitively stated that mosquitoes cannot transmit the virus, it is the first to provide conclusive data supporting the theory.
The team ultimately found that the virus is unable to replicate in three common and widely distributed species of mosquitoes—Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus and Culex quinquefasciatus—and therefore cannot be transmitted to humans.
The researchers have been ongoing with other animal pathogens that can be transmitted from animals to people, including Rift Valley fever and Japanese encephalitis, as well as diseases that could devastate America’s food supply, such as African swine fever and classical swine fever.
The current research was in part supported by the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Transition Fund provided by the state of Kansas.
One author of the study is Stephen Higgs, the associate vice president for research and director of the university’s Biosecurity Research Institute.
The study is published in Nature Scientific Reports.
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