At last I am done with all the immunizations needed as my preparation going to Sudan. There is one thing that I am thinking of not taking is the antimalarial drugs. I went to our antimalarial head office and the doctor did not advised me of taking the drugs prophylactically because of the danger of the side effects. It is better to take the drugs when someone is exposed to. Of course, personal protection from mosquitoes is a must. For now, I do not think I will take them but I still have to make sure it is okay with my employer. It is sad to know when we think about mosquitoes, they just small but then it will give us big troubles.
Mosquitoes are dangerous when they carry with them causative agents of certain disease. It is recommended that we should clean our surroundings in order to chase them away. These are the facts about mosquitoes.
• Anopheles mosquitoes are distinguished from other mosquitoes by their ‘tail in the air’ posture.
• When mosquitoes bite humans they suck up blood. If the person they bite has malaria, parasites in this blood breed and develop in the mosquito. When the mosquito feeds on another person, parasites are injected with the mosquito’s saliva.
• Every two or 3 days throughout their life, the female mosquitoes seek blood, which is used to provide protein for development of their eggs.
• Almost all Anopheles mosquitoes usually feed at night. After feeding, mosquitoes usually rest on the walls or ceiling while they digest the blood.
• Anopheles mosquitoes usually lay their eggs in puddles (shallow water) and irrigation water, not in smelly polluted water or water-filled garbage (in which Culex and Aedes mosquitoes lay).
• The eggs hatch into larvae which float parallel to the surface. After about a week at tropical temperatures, the larvae have grown up and emerge as adult mosquitoes from the water.