如果你生活在热带或亚热带地区，例如中国的海南岛或香港，你便无法免遭蚊虫叮咬之苦。这些小害虫似乎无处不在，它们携带传染性病菌，以吸血为生，彻夜骚乱不止。

蚊子事实上是世界上最危险的虫子，也是人类最古老的宿敌和最致命的杀手。据《吉尼斯世界纪录大全》记载，人类除了死于战争和事故外，携带疟疾以及其他病菌的蚊子被认为是自石器时代以来人类最大的直接杀手或间接杀手。即使在今天，肆虐世界各地的蚊子每年将两百万人送人黄泉，另外估计约有6亿人受到蚊子所携带的病菌的威胁。

If you live in a tropical climate or sub-tropical climate like China's Hainan Island or Hong Kong, it is impossible for you to

avoid the attacks of mosquitoes. It seems that these little pests are everywhere. Feeding on blood and carrying infection, these little insects make nuisance of themselves throughout the night.

In fact, the mosquito is the most dangerous insect in the world, and can be shown to be man's oldest and deadliest insect enemy. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the type of mosquito which carries malaria and other diseases is believed to be the worst killer, directly or indirectly, for human deaths since the Stone Age, if you exclude deaths from wars and accidents. Even today, mosquitoes kill up to two million people a year worldwide and an estimated 600 million more are said to be at risk or threatened by the diseases they carry.

携带传染性病菌的蚊子都是雌性蚊子，而雌性蚊子在产卵之前通常都要吸血。雌性蚊子先在受害者身上射入一种可以稀释血液的物质，然后通过头部上的那根如针般的细管将稀释后的血液吸上来。起稀释作用的物质携带着病菌，由蚊子传播给另一个人，于是形成了一个传播疾病与导致死亡的周而复始的恶性循环。

蚊子产生免疫力的速度似乎与我们发明杀虫剂的速度一样快，也与我们开发药物、控制蚊子传播疾病的速度一样快。很多事例表明，蚊子产生抗体所需要的时间远比人类发明药物所需要的时间少得多。

Infection is carried only by the female mosquito, which usually has to feed on blood before laying eggs. The insect injects the victim with a substance which thins the blood, before it is sucked up through a needle-like tube on its head. The thinning agent contains the disease, which will then be passed on to the next person by this mosquito. And so proceeds the vicious cycle of disease and death.

As quickly as we develop insecticides to kill them, mosquitoes seem to be able to develop resistance to our inventions. The same is true of efforts to develop drugs to control the diseases spread by mosquitoes. In many cases, it takes a much shorter time for mosquitoes to develop resistance to man's invention of a new drug than it takes man to develop the drug.

那么我们可以采取什么样的措施来使人类免受蚊虫宿敌的致命伤害呢?有人建议把无生育能力的蚊子放人蚊群，这样可以控制蚊子增长的数量。然而这样做是否可以将蚊子及其所携带的病菌一扫而光呢，这非常值得怀疑。至少目前还做不到。

现在的问题是如何可以控制蚊虫的伤害，而不是如何彻底打败我们这个宿敌。除了医生和科学家的努力之外，这场控制虫害的战争必须在全世界范围内展开，必须是一场全球性的战争。

So what can be done to protect humankind from their deadly old insect enemy? There have been suggestions that releasing sterile insects which cannot breed into the population might control the growth of mosquitoes in numbers. However, it is very doubtful that the mosquito and the diseases it carries will ever be completely wiped out. At least not for the present.

The situation is now one of damage control rather than complete defeat of the old enemy. In addition to the efforts of the doctors and scientists, the war to control the damage this pest insect can do has to be carried out around the world. And this has to be a global war.

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