Bill Gates: The Mosquito is the Deadliest Animal in the World

What is the deadliest animal in the world? The snake, the lion, the tiger or the spider? If your answer was any of these options, be aware that, at least for Bill Gates, she is wrong.

According to Microsoft's founder, the mosquito is the animal that kills the most. Annually, there are about 725 thousand deaths caused by the "pet". The data was released by Bill Gates himself on his blog, Gates Notes.

An interesting piece of information found in the post is that not even man-made deaths are as numerous as those caused by mosquitoes. According to Gates's blog, mosquitoes carry devastating diseases.

Still according to the blog, sharks and wolves are responsible for 10 deaths worldwide each year. Meanwhile, elephants kill 100 and crocodiles a thousand people annually. The rabies transmitted by dogs causes the deaths of 25, 000 people.

The worst diseases

There are over 2, 500 species of mosquitoes found in all regions of the world except Antarctica. During breeding seasons, mosquitoes outnumber all other animals on Earth, excluding ants and termites.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria is the disease that kills most mosquitoes today. In 2013, 620, 000 people died from the disease. In addition, there were 207 million cases that year. Dengue is another dangerous disease caused by the insect. It is present in about 100 countries.

Mosquito week

Given these numbers, mosquitoes were expected to receive more attention than they actually have. Sharks, for example, are responsible for the deaths of less than a dozen people each year and in the United States have a week devoted to them on television. "Mosquitoes kill 50, 000 times more people, but there are no TV channels that feature content about them."

Because of this alarming data, Bill Gates promoted Mosquito Week last week. Taking advantage of the occasion, Microsoft's founder released a lot of relevant information about the dangers caused by mosquitoes. Below you can see the video displayed in the post cited.

Via Tecmundo