Frequency matters: How successive feeding episodes by blood-feeding insect vectors influences disease transmission

[...]they must be able to rapidly digest the blood meal and remove excess water to regain their mobility. [...]it has been estimated that Ae. aegypti acquire approximately 0.7 human blood meals a day in nature [7]. [...]additional blood feeding would increase the likelihood that viruses traverse the basal lamina resulting in earlier and more efficient virus dissemination. [...]modelling these changes in virus dissemination kinetics revealed that the shortened extrinsic incubation period (EIP) (time from pathogen acquisition to transmission) associated with additional blood meals could significantly increase the basic reproductive number, R0 (the number of new infections arising from an infected mosquito) [17].