Mosquitoes are annoying flying little vampires, whether you suffer from getting bitten a lot or not. However, if you are one of the lucky ones that do get bitten (and that’s most of us), the irritation that they cause can result in severe itchiness that can drive you crazy.
Depending on where you are and what you’re doing, like camping by stagnant water, you could wake up covered in bites! You may be wondering how many mosquito bites does it take to kill you?
If you’re infected with malaria, it might just be one! But if you were swarmed, you’d need to be bitten a million times for them to suck out all your blood.
Fun times.
We’ll discuss it all below!
How Many Mosquito Bites Does It Take To Kill You?
Mosquitoes are little vampires, penetrating the skin with their straw-like proboscis and sucking your blood with no regard for the fact that you need it, too! However, it’s just the females that do this damage, because male mosquitoes only feast on the nectar of flowers.
This is different from other bloodsucking insects like bed bugs, where both males and females drink blood .
Although female mosquitoes also feast on flower nectar, they need to feed on the blood of humans and animals in order to extract the proteins, which help them to produce their eggs. And it’s the blood of humans that they prefer most.
Although female mosquitoes also feast on flower nectar, they need to feed on the blood of humans and animals in order to extract the proteins, which helps them to produce their eggs. And it’s the blood of humans that they prefer most.
You’ll be pleased to hear though, that most of us have far more than enough blood in our bodies to deal with a mosquito attack. For instance, for someone around 150lbs, it would take around one million mosquito bites to extract the amount of blood that would kill them.
And of course, this is extremely unlikely to ever happen to anyone.
Anyone can survive a blood loss of around 10-15% without suffering from any illness, and this means it would take around 100,000 mosquitoes to bite you for harm to occur.
That said, there are approximately 110 trillion mosquitoes on earth! There are more than enough mosquitoes out there to drink all your blood.
But until you’re in a situation where this may happen — which again, is extremely unlikely — you never have to worry about mosquitoes sucking so much blood that it will kill you.
First Bites
Since we now know that it will a million mosquito bites to kill you simply by blood loss, which is a situation you will never find yourself in, it’s time to take a look at how just one single bite can cause your body severe harm.
Because the females are bloodsuckers, when they pierce your skin they also secrete saliva into your blood. This means they also have the ability to transmit infections.
After extracting blood from one of their victims, they can transport it to another via saliva. This process results in more than 500,000 people dying each year worldwide.
Because the females are bloodsuckers, when they pierce your skin they also secrete saliva into your blood, which means they also have the ability to transmit infections.
These people are the unlucky ones when it comes to being bitten by a female mosquito. All you need is just one bite to get malaria.
The most well-known mosquito-borne illness is malaria, which affects thousands each year in tropical countries like Asia and South America. However, other diseases that female mosquitoes can infect you with are dengue fever, Zika, West Nile and Chikungunya viruses, yellow fever, and encephalitis.
And although most people bitten by just one disease-carrying mosquito will only suffer a mild or sometimes even longer-term illness, for others, such as the immune-compromised, being bitten and succumbing to one of these diseases can prove to be fatal.
How To Stop Mosquitoes Biting You
Something that’s much better than worrying about catching dengue fever or encephalitis from a mosquito bite is wearing a good insect repellent, which will go a long way in keeping you safe from these annoying buzzing vampires for hours.
Something that’s much better than worrying about catching dengue fever or encephalitis from a mosquito bite is wearing a good insect repellent, which will go a long way in keeping you safe from these annoying buzzing vampires for hours.
Most mosquito repellents include an active ingredient known as DEET, or N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide.
However, this chemical has caused some people to develop skin rashes, and even seizures from using it, so luckily these days there are alternative mosquito repellents available that work… almost… as well.
One such DEET-free repellent is Repel’s Plant Based Lemon Eucalyptus Insect Repellent. Whenever you’re outdoors, this repellent will give you good coverage, because it lasts long — whether you’re camping in the forest, or just enjoying a BBQ in the backyard.
Its plant-based ingredients include natural lemon eucalyptus essential oil, which has been recommended by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to help you avoid getting bitten by mosquitoes carrying dengue fever, Zika, West Nile, and Chikungunya viruses.
One application will last for around six hours of wear, and it has a cool and refreshing scent that isn’t harsh like DEET, and it is safe to use even for children ages three years and older.
Last Bites
So, how many mosquito bites does it take to kill you?
Well, you don’t need to worry about the number, it would take a million bites to kill you. It will take more than 100,000 mosquito bites on your body to even cause a health issue as far as blood loss is concerned. And this is very unlikely to ever happen to you.
But if you live or travel somewhere where mosquitoes carry diseases like dengue fever or Zika virus, then you need to make sure that you protect yourself accordingly so that you don’t get bitten, because just one bite can make you sick.
Be sure you check travel guidelines for vaccinations against mosquito-borne illnesses.
