[pct-l] PCT FAQ - Mosquitos

[Paul]

On Tuesday 16 December 2008, Jeffrey Olson wrote:
> I was reading the FAQ and ran across the following quote in the mosquito
> section.  "Relying solely on DEET is suicide by voluntary anemia."  I
> have no idea what this means.

From the "top ten facts" on the fightthebite.com[1] web site..
<quote>
 In the interest of science, Arctic researchers uncovered their chests, arms, 
and legs and reported as many as 9000 mosquito bites per person, per minute. 
At this rate, and unprotected human would lose one half of his blood supply 
in approximately 2 hours.
</quote>

But as they also mention the average mosquito consumes approx 0.005ml of 
blood, I reckon it would require ~190,000 per hour.

The average hiker is unlikely to suffer from mosquito induced anemia ;-)


Regards, Paul.


[1] http://www.fightthebitecolorado.com/top_ten_facts.pdf