Fungal Infection from mosquitoes

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http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10179461%

255E1702,00.html

Flick, don't squash, mozzies

From correspondents in Toledo, Ohio

July 19, 2004

FLICKING away pesky mosquitoes may be better than swatting the

insects, which can cause infection if their body parts are smashed

into human skin, according to US researchers.

The issue is reviewed in an article published this month in the New

England Journal of Medicine that focuses on a 57-year-old

Pennsylvania woman who died in 2002 of a fungal infection in her

muscles called Brachiola algerae.

Doctors were puzzled because the fungus was thought to be found only

in mosquitoes and other insects.

However, they said it was not found in mosquito saliva like West Nile

virus and malaria, so a simple mosquito bite could not have caused

the infection.

The article's authors concluded that the woman must have smashed a

mosquito on her skin, smearing its body parts into a bite.