Given that the pests are attracted to our body temperatures and the CO₂ we exhale, our best tools to prevent infection lie in the usage of insect repellents that are high in active ingredients such as DEET and picaridin. As the World Health Organization notes, more than half of the human population is currently at risk from mosquito-borne diseases. Found in every region on the planet except Antarctica, the irritating insects – particularly those from the genera aedes, anopheles and culex – are the primary vectors of diseases such as malaria, chikungunya, encephalitis, elephantiasis, yellow fever, dengue fever, West Nile virus and Zika, which collectively afflict an estimated 700 million people and kill roughly 725,000 per year. While there are no vaccines or medications available to prevent infection, methods of protection include opting for neutral-coloured clothing (the tsetse is attracted to bright and dark shades, especially blue), avoiding bushes during the day and wearing permethrin-treated gear in more remote areas.Ĭlocking in at just 0.1 inches at its smallest, the common mosquito, even tinier than the tsetse fly, ranks as the second most dangerous on our list due to the sheer amount of deaths each year attributed to the various pathogens carried by several of the more than 3,000 species around the world. These microscopic pathogens are the causative agent of African sleeping sickness, a disease marked by neurological and meningoencephalitic symptoms including behavioural changes and poor coordination, as well as the disturbances to the sleep cycle that give the illness its name. While the flies themselves are nasty bloodsucking bugs that usually feed during the peak warm hours, their true terror lies in the protozoan parasites they spread known as trypanosomes.
Often regarded as the world’s most dangerous fly, the tsetse – a small speck of an insect that measures up to 0.7 inches, or about the same size as the average house fly – is commonly found in sub-Saharan countries, especially those in the center of the continent including the Sudans, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola.