-Caveat Lector-
You mean we *didn't* need all those insecticides?
================================================
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991120/newsstory7.html
Mean and minty
PEPPERMINT OIL could be a new, cheap weapon in the fight against
mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, filariasis, dengue fever and West
Nile virus. Researchers in India have found that the oil not only repels
adult mosquitoes but also kills the larvae.
A team led by Musharrah Ansari of the Malaria Research Centre and Padma
Vasudevan of the Centre for Rural Development and Technology in Delhi
extracted the oil from locally grown peppermint (Mentha piperita). The
researchers tested the oil on the larvae of three mosquito species--Aedes
aegypti (which carries dengue fever), Anopheles stephensi (malaria) and
Culex quinquefasciatus (filariasis and West Nile virus).
They spread films of peppermint oil on the water in the trays housing the
larvae. When the concentration of oil was 3 millilitres per square metre of
water, all the C. quinquefasciatus larvae died within a day, along with 90
per cent of A. aegypti and 85 per cent of A. stephensi. Higher
concentrations should kill all the larvae.
Volunteers doused in peppermint oil spent several nights outside as bait for
mosquitoes. The protection offered varied slightly between the different
mosquito species, but averaged around 85 per cent. It was particularly
effective against Anopheles culicifacies, which is responsible for around
three- quarters of malaria transmissions in the northern plains of India.
This follows the discovery that compounds isolated from another member of
the mint family, catnip, repel cockroaches (New Scientist, 28 August, p 22).
Christopher Curtis, a medical entomologist at the London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine, welcomes the news. However, he cautions that the
Indian team is using far more oil than would be needed to do the same job
with a commercial insecticide: "You would need tonnes of leaves to treat all
the breeding sites around a village," he says.
Source: Bioresource Technology (vol 71, p 267)
Michelle Knott
>From New Scientist, 20 November 1999
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