• Australia's largest state hits record-high COVID-19 cases despite weeks of strict lockdown. 'It's a tinderbox ready to explode,' one official said.
• eToro says crypto made up 73% of trading commissions in the last quarter, as retail customers dived in
• A flight attendant says she was too exhausted to report a passenger who shoved her when a flight was overbooked: report
• US jobless claims climb for first time in 5 weeks, to 353,000

EVER WONDERED WHAT animal kills the most humans?

Bill Gates posted this infographic on his blog last week that shows a surprising number one.

“The number of mosquito-caused deaths really is a mind-blowing thing. Other than humans killing humans during periods of war, most years, the mosquito wins,” the Mosquito Week trailer says.

Bill Gates Bill Gates

The reason?

Mosquitoes carry terrible diseases, including: malaria (which kills more than 600,000 people every year), dengue fever virus, Rift Valley fever virus, yellow fever, chikungunya virus, West Nile virus, Lymphatic filariasis, and Japanese encephalitis.

These mosquito-borne infections don’t just kill — they debilitate millions of people. Sometimes these people can’t work and can’t support themselves. Billions of dollars in productivity is lost in places where these debilitating infections run rampant — fueled by mosquitoes.

The deadliest of all is malaria, a parasitic infection that mosquitoes inject directly into our bloodstream when they bite. The parasites then travel to the victim’s liver, where they multiply and reproduce. Their babies travel the bloodstream, destroying the red blood cells.

Usually the infection doesn’t kill, but it’s so abundant in so much of the equatorial world that more than 200 million people are infected every year, and more than 700,000 die from the disease.

Here are the areas of the world where Malaria is the worst, from the US Centre for Disease Control:

The site is doing a whole series of posts for “Mosquito Week” including a post about “What It Feels Like To Have Malaria“.

Read: Cases of malaria in Ireland rise for the third year in a row

Read: Over half of Africa remains at “moderate to high” risk of malaria

Making a difference

A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can make sure we can keep reliable, meaningful news open to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.

Support us Learn More