The most deadly creature on earth

By Lenny Bernstein, WashPost
April 29 at 11:51 am

You were going to say humans, right? All those guns, bombs, chemicals and God-knows-what-else we use to kill each other.

Okay, we’re second, at 475,000 deaths annually. But it’s a distant second to the lowly mosquito, which, according to Bill Gates, kills 725,000 people a year; 600,000 of them by transmitting malaria. Another 200 million people are incapacitated annually by the disease.

Gates is devoting his blog to mosquitoes this week, hoping to create a Mosquito Week to compete with the Discovery Channel’s well-known Shark Week (the star of “Jaws” kills about 10 people each year), as he and his foundation continue their efforts to wipe out mosquito-borne illnesses.

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