The illnesses mosquitoes carry in Nigeria

Three mosquitoes, not one

People say mosquito as though it were one animal. For anyone trying to avoid being bitten, the useful split is three.

Anopheles is the malaria mosquito. It feeds mostly between dusk and dawn, and it rests indoors on walls and under furniture. This is why a net over the bed does so much work, and why the hours that matter are the ones you are asleep.

Aedes is the daytime biter, easiest to recognise by the pale markings on its legs. It is the one associated with yellow fever, dengue, Zika and chikungunya. It bites in the morning and again in the late afternoon, and it breeds in small clean water: a bucket, a tyre, a plant saucer, a bottle cap.

Culex is the common house mosquito, the one that whines around your ear at night. It breeds in dirty water, in drains and soakaways, and it is a nuisance biter far more often than it is anything else.

Malaria

Malaria is caused by a parasite carried by female Anopheles mosquitoes, and Nigeria carries a larger share of the global burden than any other country.

Fever, chills, headache and body aches are the usual first signs, and they are not specific to malaria. That is exactly why guessing is a bad idea. Testing is what separates malaria from the several other things that begin the same way.

The measures that reduce transmission are well established and none of them are novel: sleeping under an insecticide-treated net, screening windows and doors, and removing the standing water that produces the next generation of mosquitoes.

If you or a member of your household has a fever, go and get tested. Do not treat it at home on the assumption that it is malaria, and do not wait for it to pass.

Yellow fever, dengue, Zika and chikungunya

These four are spread by Aedes mosquitoes, and they matter here for a practical reason: the same mosquito carries all of them, and it breeds in the containers around your own house rather than in the bush.

Yellow fever is the one Nigeria has seen outbreaks of in recent years. There is a vaccine, it is part of the routine schedule, and it is the single most effective thing available. Ask at a clinic whether your household is covered.

Dengue, Zika and chikungunya are less commonly diagnosed in Nigeria than malaria, partly because they are less common and partly because a fever tends to be tested for malaria first. All three begin with fever and body pain.

Zika is the one with a specific warning attached. Infection during pregnancy is associated with serious birth defects, so anyone pregnant should take bite avoidance seriously in the daytime as well as at night, and should raise any fever with a doctor.

Because Aedes bites during the day, a bed net does nothing about it. What works is emptying the containers it breeds in, covering stored water, and screening.

What actually reduces the risk

Every serious source says the same four things, in roughly this order.

Remove the water. A container that holds water for about a week can produce adult mosquitoes. Tip out buckets, drums, tyres, plant saucers and blocked gutters weekly, and cover water you are storing on purpose.

Sleep under a treated net. It is the measure with the strongest evidence behind it for malaria, and it costs almost nothing to use once you have one.

Keep them out of the building. Screens on windows and doors, and repairs to the holes in the ones you already have.

Get vaccinated where a vaccine exists. Yellow fever has one. Malaria vaccines are being rolled out in parts of Nigeria; ask at your clinic whether they are available where you are.

Insecticides and repellents sit alongside those measures. They reduce the number of mosquitoes in a room and the number of bites you take. They are not a substitute for a net, a screen, a vaccine or a test.

What this page is not

This is general information about insects and the illnesses associated with them. It is not medical advice and it is not a diagnosis.

No product sold by C-Success prevents, treats or cures malaria, yellow fever, dengue, Zika, chikungunya or any other illness. TOPRANK and VANISH are insecticides. They kill and repel insects. That is the whole of what they do and the whole of what we claim.

If somebody in your household has a fever, go to a clinic and get tested. If somebody is pregnant, or a child is unwell, go sooner rather than later. An insecticide is not a treatment and nothing on this site should be read as suggesting otherwise.