Doctor Sees Possible Link in Mosquito Bites, AIDS

Repeated virus infections from insects may lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine at Miami told an Irvine audience Wednesday.

Dr. Caroline L. MacLeod, addressing the 17th annual conference of the Society of Vector Ecologists at UC Irvine, described mosquitoes as “flying syringes” and said that since about 10% of all AIDS victims in California and the southeastern parts of the United States are in the non-risk category, “we have to look at insects” for the cause.

“This is especially true when you consider that AIDS cases in Africa are divided equally, 50-50, between men and women.”

However, MacLeod, who has worked in Africa and the Bahamas and currently works in Belle Glade in the Florida Everglades, said the process by which mosquitoes could transmit the virus known as HTLV III is complex and most likely to affect field workers who are constantly exposed to insect bites.

Repeated infections with insect-borne viruses “may cause enough destruction of the immune system, thus leading to AIDS,” she said.

In an urban environment, MacLeod said, the victim “could be a skid-row alcoholic sitting on the sidewalk near an intravenous drug user, with a mosquito-breeding sewer nearby.”

She stressed the fact that repeated exposure to the insects over long periods is necessary to “destroy immunity and produce a statistically higher risk factor.”

HTLV III does not live in mosquitoes, she said, but other viruses do, “and we think it is the interaction of these that can result in AIDS.”