(noun. /vec-TOR/)
by Margaret Dedloff
What does it mean?
An organism, usually a bug, that can transmit disease to an animal. Mosquitoes and ticks are often vectors, and spread disease by biting. Ticks can act as vectors for bacterial diseases such as Lyme disease and viral diseases like Powassan virus. Mosquitoes can act as vectors for viral diseases, like West Nile virus, and for parasites, like malaria.
How do I use it in a sentence?
Mosquitoes are important vectors for the Zika virus.
Image on the left shows a tick on skin. The image on the right shows a mosquito full of blood, after biting an animal. Image source.
Fields of study in which this word is commonly used: Vector is a word commonly used in virology, the field that studies viruses. There is also a field referred to as vector biology, which studies vectors and their role in spreading disease.
