Ouch! Hepatitis C From Mosquito Bites? Come on!

Hepatitis C is no laughing matter. It is a nasty virus that infects the liver and can cause cirrhosis, cancer and just makes you feel bad all the time. Before there was a good blood test for the virus, you could get it from blood transfusions. There is a 5% chance it can be transmitted by unprotected sex. Most cases presently result from sharing needles for IV drugs. Still, there had always been a large group of people in which no risk factors could be identified, no blood transfusions, no IV drugs, no promiscuous sex. Where did they get it? Physicians called it community acquired, a fancy way of saying they don’t know, just that they got it somewhere in the community.

But mosquitoes? Well, this is a breaking story and there may not be much to it but the early findings are a bit disturbing. Dr. Carroll Leevy, Professor of Medicine at the University of Medicine in New Jersey found that between 5% and 10% of mosquitoes in several areas of New Jersey were positive for the hepatitis B virus. He also found that up to 16% of the mosquitoes carried the antibody to hepatitis C. This suggests that the mosquitoes had bitten someone with hepatitis C. It is known that most people with the hepatitis C antibody also carry the hepatitis C virus.

Does this mean that mosquitoes in New Jersey are deadly carriers of hepatitis C and that any one who visits the New Jersey Shore is at risk? Hardly! One finding like this does not prove much. Although mosquitoes are known to transmit the deadly and, now never seen, yellow fever virus, it is quite a jump to incriminate mosquitoes for transmission of hepatitis C.