Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
The wispy shadow at the corner of your eye emitted a high-pitched whine. It grew louder. You were chosen.
After landing gently, the mosquito fluttered briefly at your skin. Then, with a slight prickle, it slipped its needle-like mouth into your vein and sucked your blood.
Host targeted. Skin pierced. Blood ingested.
Like a macabre game of choose-your-own adventure, every point in this nervy scenario is important when it comes to the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, Zika, West Nile, and dengue, which lead to nearly a million human deaths each year.
For starters, a mosquito can transmit pathogens at the probing stage…
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
The wispy shadow at the corner of your eye emitted a high-pitched whine. It grew louder. You were chosen.
After landing gently, the mosquito fluttered briefly at your skin. Then, with a slight prickle, it slipped its needle-like mouth into your vein and sucked your blood.
Host targeted. Skin pierced. Blood ingested.
Like a macabre game of choose-your-own adventure, every point in this nervy scenario is important when it comes to the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, Zika, West Nile, and dengue, which lead to nearly a million human deaths each year.
For starters, a mosquito can transmit pathogens at the probing stage, which happens before it starts feeding.
“It kind of spits some saliva into you, and this is one of the points where infection can take place,” said Kyle Dahlin, a postdoctoral associate in mathematics at Virginia Tech.
Other complicating factors include: What if you thwack it? What if you miss? What if it probes you but doesn’t bite? What if it goes for someone else instead and kicks off a new cycle of disease transmission?
“These looping possibilities can exacerbate disease transmission and multiply it,” Dahlin said.
To account for these contingencies, Dahlin led a team of mathematicians in the development of a model that can handle more complexity and open new paths for disease suppression. The work was recently published in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology.
Once bitten, twice shy
Dahlin scaled up the mosquito-biting model to connect individual-level mosquito behavior to human diseases on a population level. The model is already offering up some surprising insights. For instance, in terms of population-level disease transmission, the model shows that it’s actually better to let the mosquito bite you.
“You might get sick. But somebody else may not. It represents less overall transmission,” said Lauren Childs, the Cliff and Agnes Lilly Faculty Fellow and associate professor of mathematics.
While the researchers don’t encourage this course of action, with proper parameterization, the findings point to more practical recommendations, such as which types of insecticides repel mosquitoes before they land on you.
“We hope that this will bring about additional ways to suppress disease,” said Dahlin, who came to Virginia Tech specifically to work with Childs and mathematician Michael Robert to build a better disease-transmission model.
“This won’t necessarily be the silver bullet but hopefully another tool in the toolbox,” Dahlin added.
More information: Kyle J.-M. Dahlin et al, Once bitten, twice shy: A modeling framework for incorporating heterogeneous mosquito biting into transmission models, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s11538-025-01540-z
Citation: Mathematicians model the menace of mosquitoes (2025, November 6) retrieved 6 November 2025 from https://phys.org/news/2025-11-mathematicians-menace-mosquitoes.html
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