I often see people getting annoyed over mosquitoes and will employ every possible means available to kill them. Even Municipal Corporation bodies are after their lives and regularly fumes toxic gases in various localities.

In my childhood, I have heard only one mosquito killer remedy and that was called Baygon spray. But today, people have several options to get rid of mosquitoes. Many people use mosquito repelling coils but its chemical-fumes appear toxic to me and it has an unpleasant smell. Some people use tablets on a heating plate. Now a day, liquid vaporizers have become very popular to defend mosquito-threat.

Some people use to produce smoke in the room by burning some coal after closing all windows and door which often spoils the interior paint and at times I find news of people becoming victim to asphyxia for employing such methods carelessly.

I’ve also seen people constantly waving battery operated rackets to electrocute mosquitoes flying in their vicinity. Earlier, some ultrasound machines were unsuccessfully used to repel mosquitoes. In today’s times, I was surprised to find some mosquito repelling apps offered on mobile platforms. I don’t know anything like that works but people keep looking for every magical solution to this problem and downloads such apps.

Mosquito - The Deadliest Animal of the World

Mosquito has been demonized by christening it as the "World’s Deadliest Animal" by Bill Gates. It’s true that as per WHO reports, mosquitoes are the cause of about a million deaths every year, in the world. Mosquitoes are found everywhere in the world except Antarctica. Scientists and doctors have alleged that mosquitoes are the transmitters of deadly diseases like:

• Malaria
• Chikungunya
• Dengue and
• Yellow Fever.
  
  
  Further they are the carriers of deadly virus like:
• Zika virus and
• West Nile virus.

If these names are not frightening enough to you, I’m sure we’ll hear new names of still more dangerous diseases allegedly caused by mosquitoes.

Is the mosquito humans’ Enemy No.1?

I hope after hearing the names of dangerous diseases and stats by renowned WHO and Bill Gates, you will agree that mosquitoes are a serious threat to human species. So should we kill all of these creatures? Or do you feel mosquitoes have been unnecessarily demonized out of proportion and this has created a sense of fear towards these creatures?

Toxic chemicals are wrongly labelled as repellents

Well, if you ask me, I’ve never killed a single mosquito intentionally in my entire life. I did use mosquito coils and liquid vaporizers for some time. I was told that these are mosquito repellent but I found that many mosquitoes were dying by using them. Once I called the customer care number of a reputed brand and insisted to register my complaint that their product is killing mosquitoes. But after about an hour of holding and communicating with several officers, they finally hung up.

Now I notice that major vaporizers market themselves using terms like “Extra MMR (Mosquito Mortality Rate)”, so at least people know what their products do.

How does it help if you kill a few mosquitoes anyway?

Of course, I caught malaria several times in my childhood but then I developed immunity to it. Fortunately, we don’t have any vaccine for malaria but only treatment. I’m sure, if there were a vaccine, I’d never had developed a strong immunity for malaria.

If you check the stats, the most people hit by malaria are in sub-Saharan Africa. Majority of malaria deaths occur in Africa. But the people most likely to get seriously or fatally ill are those with weak or no immunity. So I feel, instead of focusing on killing all mosquitoes (which is next to impossible), we should focus on getting right nutrition and lifestyle to make our own immune system stronger.

Once you have a good immune system, you won’t find yourself in much danger. I know, these tiny mosquitoes can’t suck too much blood from an adult body compared to when you donate a unit of blood to the blood banks. But scarcity of blood is not the problem for people, they are annoyed and troubled by their constant humming and biting and the resultant pain. I feel that this is because we never allow them to bite us. If we let them bite us, we will develop tolerance to the pain too.

Mosquitoes do bite us despite of all measures. Diseases caused by mosquitoes occur in every city in spite of all the campaigns run by local authorities and measures taken at individual level. So how does killing a few mosquitoes by you help? Killing some of the mosquitoes just give you mental relief. It doesn’t eliminate the danger of you catching one of those dreadful diseases. Some people just kill mosquitoes out of annoyance and they are especially after the one who has just bitten them.

The best defense

Personally, I have discovered the best defense against mosquitoes. Would you like to know it?


This is where I’m gonna sleep tonight

I bought this cheap mosquito net last year. It lasts for 2-4 years. But it is cheaper than all other alternatives and highly effective too. I don’t sleep with mosquitoes. 😜

I sleep on my house’s roof every night in summers. I don’t use any A.C. or a Desert Cooler in my room. (Do keep in mind that I reside in the desert state of India and it's really hot here these days). We got our whole roof painted with a reflective white paint which has decreased indoor temperature by a good margin. I’ll tell you about it in detail on some other day. But I can tell you that even with reduced temperatures due to white roof implementation, the temperature on roof is about 7^oC to 10^oC lower than the temperature in my room. And sleeping under stars and moon is what life is all about to me 😊

Now my bed is waiting for me. Good night to all of you!