Mosquitos & Birds

QUESTION:

Help me! Can Mosquitos harm budgies? There was a mosquito in my room last night and I tried baiting it but all in vain. This morning I uncovered my daughter and OUT CAME THE DAMN MOSQUITO FROM HER CAGE. Actually just now I killed it and no blood but still, should I worry?

 ANSWER via Biologybeep:

Mosquito vectors cause diseases in birds just as they do in humans. Most prominently is avian pox virus (Avipoxvirus spp.), which presents as large tumors typically of the bare parts: legs, beak, nares, or eyes. More rarely it takes a diphtheritic form (infecting the lung/GI epithelia) which is more severe. Viremia (infection of the blood) is universally fatal within days.
Avian pox virus is more prevalent in big cities (Giraudeau et al. 2014). I am not aware of the phylogenetics of pox viruses that infect parrots, only passerines, but the virus family is diverse and it wouldn’t surprise me.