Scientists provide conclusive data that mosquitoes can't spread COVID-19

"To date there has been no information nor evidence to suggest that the new coronavirus could be transmitted by mosquitoes," WHO said on their COVID-19 "mythbusters" page.

By ZACHARY KEYSER
Mosquito (illustrative). (photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)
Mosquito (illustrative).
(photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)
According to a study by researchers at Kansas State University, mosquitoes are unable to spread the novel coronavirus.
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) disseminated this information to the public early on in the pandemic, the researchers spent time investigating three common mosquito species to provide conclusive data their notion.
"To date there has been no information nor evidence to suggest that the new coronavirus could be transmitted by mosquitoes," WHO said on their COVID-19 "mythbusters" page.
Piggybacking on this idea, the researchers said that "while the World Health Organization has definitively stated that mosquitoes cannot transmit the virus, our study is the first to provide conclusive data supporting the theory," and added that they demonstrated that even under extreme conditions, SARS-CoV-2 virus is unable to replicate in these mosquitoes and therefore cannot be transmitted to people even in the unlikely event that a mosquito fed upon a viremic host."
To arrive at their results, the researchers tested three mosquito species - Ae. aegypti, Ae. albopictus and Cx. quinquefasciatus (all present in China) - and determined through intrathoracic inoculation with SARS-CoV-2 that the virus loses infectivity during the "holding period." No virus was detected in the 277 inoculated mosquitoes, through tests performed beyond a 24 hour period.
From 48 mosquitos tested exactly 24 hours after inoculation, only one contained infectious traces of the novel disease.
"The most extreme approach for viral challenge of mosquitoes, namely intrathoracic inoculation, was used as an ultimate test of the capacity of SARS-CoV-2 to infect and replicate in mosquitoes," the study authors wrote in the journal Nature. "The hypothesis was that if the virus did not replicate in mosquitoes after intrathoracic inoculation, then even if mosquitoes did feed on viremic people, and the virus disseminated from the midgut, the lack of replication would preclude the possibility of biological transmission."
"Based upon the lack of detectable infectious virus in any of the 277 samples collected at all-time points beyond 24 h post-inoculation, we conclude that SARS-CoV-2 is unable to replicate in mosquitoes and that even if a mosquito fed on a person with virus in the blood, that the mosquito would not be a vector if feeding on a naïve host," they concluded.