Gates: Mosquito is the World's Most Deadly Animal

Mosquitoes are the world's most dangerous animals in the world, killing an estimated 725,000 humans a year, compared to humans who only kill 475,000 of their own species a year, according to a recent info-graphic that Bill Gates posted on his highly-popular blog in an effort to promote a mosquito awareness week.

Bill Gates announced last Friday that everything he'd be posting this week in his blog would be dedicated to telling people how dangerous mosquitoes are to humans -- and he has not disappointed. Since April 25th, the world-renown computer programmer and entrepreneur  has posted five articles that help explain why mosquitoes kill more humans than every other animal -- including humans -- on the planet.

But how can this be? Sure mosquitoes carry well known viruses like West Nile, but the world has numerous preventative measures to take against a potentially deadly prick to the arm. Surely more aggressive and obvious man-killers like sharks are the more dangerous predators.

Gates does admit in his blog that he's always "had a thing about sharks" ever since he first saw the classic movie Jaws, but numbers don't lie. Sharks only kill about 0.10 humans annually, despite all the attention Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" gets from the general public.

In an homage to "Shark Week," Gate's Mosquito week focuses on the unique horror of a mosquito bite, explain in depth what it is like to come down with deadly mosquito-carried diseases that most North Americans know nothing about.

"The worst," Gates writes, is malaria, which kills more than 600,000 people every year and threatens half the world population according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).

While not as prevalent, other mosquito-borne infections hive high death rates simply because the world simply has yet to develop a vaccination for it, or the parts of the world that are most heavily affect do not have access to life-saving treatments.

Recently, the a Chikungunya virus outbreak in the Dominican Republic was confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the country's Public Health Minister. This debilitating disease, while often not fatal, can last for months and makes victims extremely susceptible to more deadly infections from other viral or bacterial infections. There is currently no vaccination or known treatment.

Dangue, another potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease is becoming increasingly prevalent around the world. Thankfully, experimental vaccinations for the sickness are showing promise in trials and emergency applications sanctioned by the WHO.

You can follow "Mosquito Week" on Gates' blog, called GatesNotes.

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