Anopheles mosquitoes that take multiple blood meals from different people who are infected with malaria or take multiple parasite strains from a person during a single blood meal can have grave consequences — they can end up accumulating more malaria infections. Also, mosquitoes that have already been infected with one malaria parasite strain become more likely to get infected with a new strain.

The presence of more than one strain in a mosquito at any given point has some undesired outcomes. For instance, the interactions between strains inside the mosquito are such that the very presence of an existing infection “enhances the replication” of malaria parasites. The survival of mosquitoes is not impacted despite the presence of more strains and enhanced replication leading to larger population of parasites................Read more

Source: The Hindu