Mosquito Menace

India being a sub-tropical country has an optimum temperature and humidity conditions for mosquito breeding and thus is affected by repeated epidemic like conditions created due to mosquito-borne diseases. A major chunk of these diseases namely dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever etc is spread by the species Aedes aegypti. The key identifying features of this species are: a smallish, dark mosquito with conspicuous white markings and banded legs, the proboscis is all black although the palps are white tipped, wings are dark scaled, hind legs with femur pale scaled for basal three-quarters with dark scales. With the large scale increase in mosquito-borne diseases, it becomes imperative to work for better control methods and repellents. Most repellents today aiming to increase the duration of action are using chemicals like DEET (N, N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide) which stand effectively for longer durations. However, it becomes a matter of rising concern of the serious drawbacks of long term exposure to such chemicals. The experiment, therefore, aims to identify natural repellents in the form of natural oils namely citronella oil, lemongrass oil, celery seed oil, lavender oil, and cinnamon oil and then comparing their effect with the chemical DEET using Contact Irritancy Assay on laboratory-reared mosquitoes. Further, the oil was tested for its duration of repellency using Human Bait Technique.