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- Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!ucla-cs!usenet
- From: davison@sfu.ca (R. Davison)
- Subject: fleas as vector for AIDS?
- Message-ID: <1993Jan4.043144.3277@cs.ucla.edu>
- Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed.
- Sender: news@sfu.ca
- Nntp-Posting-Host: sole.cs.ucla.edu
- Archive-Number: 6708
- Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
- Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 20:14:47 GMT
- Approved: david@stat.com (David Dodell)
- Lines: 15
-
- I have been reading "Living Things We Love To Hate" by Des Kennedy.
- They have a chapter devoted to Fleas, and some of the diseases they
- have been instumental in turning into epidemics; the Bubonic Plague
- among others. There is no mention in this reference of AIDS, or HIV,
- but it left we wondering if this is real threat.
-
- Do any of the experts here know whether this is something to consider?
- Have any studies been done?
- As far as I have heard, AIDS has only afflicted primates, is this correct?
- Would dogs, cats, rats, or other flea hosts have to carry the HIV viris
- for this to be real threat?
- Or does the flea itself have to be infected to act as a vector? My
- current understanding is that it does not.
-
- Rod Davison
-