Most likely, the first specimens traveled here as eggs on a shipping container or possibly aircraft. The mosquito is “a proven vector of chikungunya, Zika, dengue, yellow fever viruses and many other diseases”, according to the team of scientists who discovered it. The Aedes vittatus is endemic to the Indian subcontinent and has never been seen in the western hemisphere until now. They’re breeding in your bird bath and they’re feeding off your kids,” says Yvonne-Marie Linton, research director of the Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit and curator of nearly 2 million specimens in the Smithsonian Institution’s US National Mosquito Collection. “Being in close contact with these mosquitoes is not good news. But unlike those others, Aedes vittatus is capable of carrying nearly all of the most dangerous mosquito-borne diseases, except for malaria. Other mosquito species, like Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti, can transmit diseases like dengue, yellow fever and chikungunya. One of 3,500 mosquito species found across the globe, it is a new addition to the dozen or so species in North America that carry parasites or pathogens harmful to humans. The intruder was an Aedes vittatus mosquito. Find out more about the series, and read the other stories, here. This story is the part of Stopping the Next One – our multimedia series looking at which diseases are most likely to cause the next global pandemic, and at the scientists racing to keep that from happening.'Wing: Scales mainly dark and narrow on all veins.'Īnd most striking of all: 'Abdomen… with large median white spot.” 'Proboscis dark with median spattering of pale yellowish scales.' The first witnesses to get a close look described the interloper this way: Even stranger, no one had ever seen anything like her on this side of the world. For an intruder to make her way in was unusual. The base is best known as the place where the US indefinitely confines suspects in its “war on terror”, without due process or trial.

Soldiers are accustomed to prisoners wishing to break out of Guantanamo. During the night of 18 June 2019, on the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an intruder was caught in a trap.

Instal the new Disease Infected: Plague