Yellow Fever Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Yellow Fever, including details on immunization, vaccines, symptoms, transmission.

Repellency effect of forty-one essential oils against Aedes, Anopheles, and Culex mosquitoes.

Amer A, Mehlhorn H

Omar Almukhtar University, P.O. Box 919, Elbieda, Libya, a_m_amer@yahoo.com.

Since ancient times, plant products were used in various aspects. However, their use against pests decreased when chemical products became developed. Recently, concerns increased with respect to public health and environmental security requiring detection of natural products that may be used against insect pests. In this study, 41 plant extracts and 11 oil mixtures were evaluated against the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti (Linnaeus), the malaria vector, Anopheles stephensi (Liston), and the filariasis and encephalitis vector, Culex quinquefasciatus (Say) (Diptera: Culicidae) using the skin of human volunteers to find out the protection time and repellency. The five most effective oils were those of Litsea (Litsea cubeba), Cajeput (Melaleuca leucadendron), Niaouli (Melaleuca quinquenervia), Violet (Viola odorata), and Catnip (Nepeta cataria), which induced a protection time of 8 h at the maximum and a 100% repellency against all three species. This effect needs, however, a peculiar formulation to fix them on the human skin.

Published 9 August 2006 in Parasitol Res, 99(4): 478-90.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Yellow Fever Research Today. All Rights Reserved.