Mosquitoes transmit diseases [that] will kill... roughly 1
in every 17 people currently alive on this planet.... The gist
of the mosquito problem [is] not... that the insect has become
better adapted to the modern world, but rather that the world
has become much more accommodating to the mosquito... While mankind
had driven thousands of species on this planet toward extinction
by destroying their habitats....the detritus of the late-20th-century
civilization ... now constitutes the ideal breeding site for
the mosquito. ... To date, the problem ... is predominantly a
Latin American one... 14
The New York Times Magazine, 8.24.97
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