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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Jonathan Healy filling in for Clare Byrne on this Friday of a bank holiday weekend. If you're heading off, this is one you may need to pay attention to. Lots of international travellers realise that mosquitoes are the worst part of the experience, but the good news is they have the spray to keep them away. Well, what if I was to tell you that mosquitoes have now evolved...
to be attracted to the smell of DEET and associate it with feeding. To explain this more, Medical Director of the Tropical Medical Bureau, Dr. Graeme Fry is with us. Hello, Graeme. Hi, John.
Chapter 2: What are the main challenges international travelers face with mosquitoes?
Now, the good news for me is that mosquitoes distinctly do not like me. I don't know what it is about my blood. They don't nibble on me at all, whereas my good lady wife is the equivalent of a Michelin-starred restaurant when they are nearby. First of all, why do mosquitoes like some people more than others?
Okay, well, I think we need to take a step back. I think mosquitoes like everyone. I honestly do. They seem to like everyone and they bite everyone. It's just some people react, some people don't. When the mozzie bites you, she shakes her proboscis. That's her... a needle at the front of her mouth. She sticks that through your skin. She wants your blood. She wants to suck up a drop. She can't.
Chapter 3: How have mosquitoes evolved to be attracted to DEET?
That's a very small needle, and your blood is very thick and viscous, like a milkshake when you first get it. Nothing happens. You have to wait for a while. So she can't suck up your blood at that point. So she injects saliva down, and then that anticoagulates her blood, and then she can suck it back up again. So I don't think you're reacting to the bite, I'm afraid, Jonathan.
I think it's a question of whether you react to her saliva. Some people have the allergy. Some people don't. It's as simple as that. It's nothing very complicated. I mean, you can stick a pin in yourself and you don't react. And that's what the needle is doing. That's what the actual proboscis is. It's just sticking a pin through your skin.
And unless it's breaking down mast cells under the skin, you're not going to get much reaction. But the saliva, you will potentially have an allergy to.
Now, people who go particularly to foreign climes, and I'm thinking Southeast Asia heading to places like Thailand, they will, as well as getting their all immunisations from their GP before they go, they tend to pack the deet because deet, we were always told, will keep the mosquitoes away. So what has changed?
Okay, well, you're basing this on one research paper which has just come through. There's a little bit of information, but very little at this stage. And it was done under laboratory conditions which are very specialised, rather than the person out on the street lying under a sun lounger and all those sort of things. So it's a little bit different to what we're going to see practically speaking.
So I think people need to be a little bit careful. DETA is still by far the best way to protect you against mosquito bites. The only question is, is that advice going to change slightly in the future? And it's possible. And over the next couple of weeks, months, we may see more papers coming out suggesting the same as this particular French paper does.
But at the same time, fundamentally, mosquitoes are attracted by a number of different things. They're attracted by dark, dark clothing. So the first thing is don't wear dark clothing. Second thing is they're attracted by smell.
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Chapter 4: Why do mosquitoes prefer some people over others?
And that smell is any smell. So it's perfumes, deodorants, aftershave, shampoo, sunblock, clothes, powders, all those sort of things. And perspiration, which is why they bite around your ankles. They're attracted by carbon dioxide, which means when you're actually breathing out, you're breathing out carbon dioxide, which may mean you're going to get bitten at the top half of your body.
And the fourth thing is any smell can actually attract them towards you. And the question really is, does DEET actually have smell? If you put on far too much DEET, are you creating smell? The way I try and describe this to patients is, Everyone knows somebody who wears perfume, a little bit of perfume, beautiful, too much perfume. Whoa, hey, whoa, that's awful.
And I think that may be one of the other factors which is going on here as well. In other words, too much of their appellant may have the opposite effect to what you expect. So you do need to be careful and get the balance right.
It's funny though, mosquitoes, I mean, they can be very, very serious. And they obviously carry malaria, but they also carry other bugs as well. Humans need to keep mosquitoes away from them as best they can. And DEET has always been the best way of doing that.
Absolutely. And I don't think that's changed from just this one single paper. So I think we just need to be careful people don't stop using it because of that and go down some other route. Citronella, as an example, only lasts for a very short period of time, whereas the deep ones typically last for six, eight, 12, 12 hours. So they're much, much better protection.
You may have to put them on a bit more often because you're gone swimming or you've had a shower or something, all those things. But they are still by far the best. Now, mosquitoes are a disaster. They transmit a huge number of diseases. Malaria, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, chikungunya.
And some of these are coming into southern Europe as well over the past year, two, three, four years. So we're now seeing cases of chikungunya and Zika and various ones in places like Greece and southern Italy and parts of France and Spain. Now, are they going to move further north with the actual warming climate that we're facing? Yeah, possibly so.
But at the moment, we're fortunate in Ireland that we don't have that many. We have midges, obviously.
I have seen mosquitoes in Ireland. I've seen them in my house. I've seen them around. I mean, they're just kind of lazy that they don't want to nibble on us here. Are conditions just not right for them?
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Chapter 5: What factors contribute to mosquito attraction?
Now, can I just mention, Jonathan, when I get to heaven, the second person I want to talk to is, why didn't Noah kill the mosquito? I mean, goodness sake.
That would have been a great help to us all. He made the mistake of bringing two of them on board. We'll leave it there for now. Dr. Graham Fry, Medical Director of the Tropical Medical Bureau.
Thank you for that.