Can I get HIV from a mosquito?

No, it is not possible to get HIV from mosquitoes or other biting and bloodsucking insects.  The results of experiments and observations of insect-biting behavior indicate that when an insect bites a person, it does not inject its own or a previously bitten person's  or animal's blood into the next person bitten.  Rather, it injects saliva, which acts as a lubricant so the insect can feed efficiently.

Diseases such as yellow fever and malaria are transmitted through the saliva of specific species of mosquitoes.  However, HIV only lives for a short time inside and insect.  Unlike organisms that are transmitted via insect bites, HIV does not reproduce (and does not survive) in insects.  Thus, even if the virus enters a mosquito or another insect, the insect does not become infected and cannot transmit HIV to the next human it bites.

There is also no reason to fear that a mosquito or other insect could transmit HIV from one person to another through HIV-infected blood left on its mouth parts.  Several reasons help explain why this is so.

1. Infected people do not have constantly high levels of HIV in their blood streams.
2. Insect mouth parts retain only very small amounts of blood on their surfaces.
3. Finally, scientists who study insects have determined that biting insects normally do not travel from one person to the next immediately after ingesting blood.  Rather, they fly to a resting place to digest the blood meal.

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