Connecticut: A new study has found that some viruses can change body odor to make it more attractive to mosquitoes.
Penghua Weng, an assistant professor of immunology at the University of Connecticut in the United States, told a foreign website that mosquitoes are the deadliest organisms in the world, causing more than 1 million deaths every year by spreading diseases such as malaria, Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever. cause of
If a mosquito bites a person who has the virus, the virus can be transmitted to the person the mosquito bites after the infected person. Body temperature, exhaled carbon dioxide and smell are all factors that help the mosquito choose its next target.
Early studies found that mice with malaria changed their sense of smell, making them more attractive to insects.
Professor Weng said the researchers placed mice infected with dengue or Zika virus and mice that were not infected in a glass chamber. Attached to this chamber were mosquitoes in a glass arm.
He said that when the researchers blew air through their chambers to deliver the odor of mice to the mosquitoes, most of the mosquitoes preferred to fly toward the infected mosquitoes.
He said that when we installed filters to stop the smell of rats, the ratio of mosquitoes on both sides became equal.
He said that three out of 20 gaseous chemical compounds were found in the smell of the infected mice, which make mosquitoes alert. One of these three compounds is acetophenone, which attracts mosquitoes more.
