• About Us
  • Board of Advisors
  • Contact

MALARIA.com

A Malaria Information and Community Portal

  • Home
  • Malaria Overview
  • Malaria Research
  • News
  • Videos
  • Blogs
  • Malaria Q&A
  • Events
  • Jobs
Home / Malaria Q&A / Anopheles Mosquitoes and Malaria Transmission

Anopheles Mosquitoes and Malaria Transmission

October 4, 2013 By Malaria Q&A Leave a Comment

QUESTION

How are the Anopheles mosquitoes able to transmit human Malaria and others are not? What makes them different from the other genus of mosquito?

ANSWER

This is a great question and in fact scientists are not really sure of the answer. The ability of female Anopheles to transmit malaria is a quirk of evolutionary history. Other species of Plasmodium (the Latin genus name of the group of parasites which cause malaria), for example those that infect birds and lizards, are transmitted by other mosquitoes, such as Culex. When the parasite switched hosts and started infecting mammals, this coincided with the parasite specializing in infecting Anopheles mosquitoes, and this relationship has remained ever since. It is a case of what scientists term “coevolution”, where a parasite and its vector have a tightly coupled and highly specialized relationship.

Filed Under: Malaria Q&A Tagged With: Anopheles, Malaria transmission, Plasmodium

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Stay Informed

WWARN Corner

About WWARN

The WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN) generates innovative resources and reliable evidence to inform the malaria community on the factors affecting the efficacy of antimalarial medicines. Learn more…

  • Fighting Malaria Requires Protecting the Effectiveness of Antimalarial Medicines
  • Data Sharing at IDDO
  • Evidence to inform equitable dosing in very young and malnourished children

More WWARN Stories...

  • Home
  • Malaria Overview
  • Malaria Research
  • News
  • Videos
  • Blogs
  • Malaria Q&A
  • Events
  • Jobs
  • About Us
  • Board of Advisors
  • Contact

Copyright © 2025 Malaria.com · Log in