O artigo explica que, embora tenhamos medo de tubarões ou lobos, os animais que mais matam humanos são os mosquitos (cerca de 700.000 a 1 milhão de mortes/ano por doenças) e as cobras. O gráfico do Our World in Data mostra que o risco real está muito mais ligado à exposição a doenças e parasitas do que a ataques diretos de grandes animais.
One and a half million people are killed by animals every year. Almost one million by other animals, and more than half a million from direct conflict among ourselves.
Almost all of these deaths from other animals are caused by just two types: mosquitoes and snakes.
In the chart above, we’ve brought together estimates of the number of people killed by different animals.
These numbers are estimates, and some come with significant uncertainty. That’s why we’ve published a detailed methodology explaining our sources and how they compare. Despite this uncertainty, we feel confident about the relative orders of magnitude across different animals.1
The biggest killers, by far, are mosquitoes. They have been one of our biggest threats for millennia, and still kill approximately 760,000 people every year.2 Over 80% of those deaths are the result of malaria, which is transmitted and spread by the Anopheles mosquito. Malaria still kills close to half a million children every year.
Another 100,000 people die every year from other mosquito-borne diseases, including dengue fever and yellow fever (spread by the mosquito species Aedes aegypti) and Japanese encephalitis.
Almost all deaths from other animals are caused by just two types: mosquitoes and snakes.
Snakes are one of the most common phobias, and you can see why. They are the second largest killers. The death toll from venomous snakes is surprisingly uncertain, as many of these deaths occur in rural areas where death records are often poor.3 But the figure is likely to be around 100,000 deaths per year. That means snakes kill more than all animals below them on the list combined.4
Most of those remaining deaths are caused by dogs, the animals that humans have grown to love as domesticated pets. The majority are due to rabies, rather than direct wounds.
Near the bottom of the list, we reach the animals that dominate our nightmares — sharks and wolves. They make for gripping headlines and blockbuster films. But in reality, shark and wolf attacks are very rare.
Of course, they don’t kill fewer people because they’re less dangerous. We’d rather be locked in a room with a mosquito than a lion. The real difference is exposure: it’s much easier to avoid large predators than it is to avoid disease-carrying insects and parasites.5
The good news is that most deaths from animals — especially the largest killers — are preventable. We have bednets and insecticide sprays to reduce exposure to mosquitoes, and medication to treat malaria if someone does become infected. New techniques, such as the Wolbachia method, have been developed to stop the spread of dengue fever. Antivenoms can often save someone from a potentially fatal snakebite.6
The problem is that not everyone has access to these preventive and treatment methods when they need them.7 If these small killers received the same global attention as large predators, more effort might go into stopping them. That is one reason why these comparisons are useful: as a reminder of what people are actually dying from, and where the most lives could be saved.There are other diseases — in particular, neglected tropical diseases — that could also be dramatically reduced with better access to treatment.
In many regions, deaths from mosquitoes have decreased dramatically. Malaria was once prevalent in countries that are now free of it. If we could achieve this in all parts of the world, the number of deaths caused by other animals would be almost six times smaller.8
If we were to also eliminate deaths from snakes through the use of antivenoms and better diagnostics, the death toll would be again reduced by almost two-thirds.9
Methodology
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