Prof John Frean, deputy director of microbiology at SA’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), said the same question was asked about HIV when the virus first emerged, and the answer in both cases is the same: No, it can’t be spread by mosquitoes.
“For mechanical transmission by mosquitoes, there would need to be both a sufficient number of viruses in the blood and sufficient volume of blood transferred in its mouthparts when a mosquito feeding on an infected person is interrupted and moves to bite someone else. Neither requirement can be met,” he said.
“Biological transmission also cannot occur because SARS-CoV-2 will not multiply inside a mosquito — unlike the Zika or yellow fever viruses, for example.”