Even with various ways to repel mosquitoes today (including DDT, which earned notoriety for its harmful effects on the environment), we still battle. We spend an average $11 billion a year trying to protect ourselves from them — mostly for naught. And they continue to slaughter us.

Though we discovered a successful vaccine for yellow fever in the 1930s, today more than 30,000 people die of the disease a year. The Zika virus, which if contracted during pregnancy can cause serious birth defects like microcephaly, was declared a global emergency by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when it hit the Americas in 2016. At the outbreak’s height, there were 5,168 reported cases in the United States (and more than 200,000 cases reported in Brazil). Thanks to various emergency interventions, including travel warnings and mosquito control methods, the CDC says there have been zero reported cases of Zika in the United States since 2018.

But malaria, still “the unsurpassed scourge of humankind” and costs Africa roughly $30 billion to $40 billion in lost commercial output.

The mosquito acts as “a countermeasure against uncontrolled human population growth,” Winegard argues.

And he thinks mosquito-inflicted death will only increase.

“Her reach is growing, expanding both north and south and vertically into higher altitudes as previously untapped regions warm up to her presence,” he writes. “Even in the face of modern science and medicine, she remains the most hazardous animal to humankind.”

Reality bites

Mosquitoes on average kill more humans than any other animal, including man himself. Here, the annual average number of deaths worldwide caused by:

• Mosquitoes: 2 million
• Humans: 475,000
• Snakes: 50,000
• Sand flies: 25,000
• Tsetse flies: 10,000
• Crocodiles: 1,000
• Hippos: 500
• Elephants: 100
• Lions: 100
• Sharks: 10
• Wolves: 10

Sucks to be you!

It’s not in your head. Some people are more attractive to mosquitoes than others. We’re all susceptible, but here are a few factors that will get you bitten more often:

• Pregnant women suffer twice as many bites because they have a slightly higher body temperature and respire 20 percent more carbon dioxide — one way the mosquito hunts its victims.
• People who have excess amounts of lactic acid, uric acid and ammonia also have the bad luck of being more attractive to mosquitoes.
• Mosquitoes prefer people with blood type O, who are bitten twice as much as those with type A. Type B falls in between the two.
• Stinky feet are a “mosquito aphrodisiac” — so clean up those smelly tootsies if you want to avoid being a mosquito meal.
• Unfortunately being too clean is also a risk factor. Mosquitoes love the smell of deodorants, perfumes, soaps and other fragrances.
• Finally, studies have also shown that mosquitoes prefer beer drinkers.

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