What would be your answer to this question? Sharks? Lions? Snakes? Well, according to a Business Insider article, the world’s deadliest creature may not be what you would expect.
A 2014 infographic from Bill Gates’ blog outlined the number of deaths per year related to animals, and it’s not any of the afore-mentioned animals or those of your worst nightmare. Rather, it is the humble and infamous blood-sucker – mosquito!
See the order below:
Yes, mosquitoes — the pesky bugs that suck blood and transmit parasites from person to person — are responsible for the most animal-related deaths. Bill Gates wrote on his blog:
When it comes to killing humans, no other animal even comes close
Malaria by itself is responsible for more than half of mosquito-related deaths, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa, though it fell by 37% between 2000 and 2015, according to the World Health Organization.
Dengue fever, another mosquito-borne disease, has become a leading-cause of hospitalisation and death among children in some Asian and Latin-American countries.
And it’s not just deaths that mosquitoes are responsible for. The recent spread of the Zika virus in the Americas by the mosquito has alerted the world to the impact the pest has. Once infected with Zika, only about 20% of people ever show symptoms, which most commonly include fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes.
One reason why Zika is troubling is because it has been linked with birth defects in babies whose mothers have had Zika symptoms and a neurological condition called Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
Read More: 11 Smart Ways To Protect Yourself From Mosquitoes Causing the Zika Virus
While Aedes aegypti has been singled out as the carrier of Zika and dengue, other mosquitoes like those in the Anopheles group carry malaria.
Apart from vaccines, mosquito eradication is one of the best ways to curb the spread of deadly infectious diseases. Only then, perhaps could there be a new deadliest animal. But until that time, it remains the whiny, annoying and disease-carrying mosquito.