Mosquito repellent will no longer smell unpleasant

There will no longer be traps that catch mosquitoes like toilets. The research team at the University of California, Davis, led by a biochemist Walter Leal, recently discovered a low-cost, easy-to-do attractant capable of luring mosquitoes to suck blood without making people must have a nasty nose.

The synthetic mixture contains trimethylamine and nonanal compounds in low doses , capable of attracting mosquitoes like other insect attractants currently on the market but it is odorless to humans.

The study is published in the current issue of the Public Library of Science Journal (PloS ONE). The study could play a key role in monitoring and monitoring programs of midges that transmit diseases such as West Nile fever, encephalitis and lymphatic worms.

According to Leal, egg-laying traps, also known as egg-carrying mosquito traps, attract blood-sucking mosquitoes that are in the reproductive phase, but traps that are made of water or chemicals often have an unpleasant odor. . It is really a big problem for people who use traps or those who live nearby.

This prompted researchers at the University of California, Davis to work on finding a way to respond to many requirements, which are chemical substances capable of attracting egg-carrying mosquitoes but not doing. affect users.

The location of their study is Recife, Brazil - the area has a large population of Culex quiquefasciatus. The study found that the combination of trimethylamine and nonanal 'has the same effect as the currently used liquid dispersants' but 'superior because there is no unpleasant odor'.

The Leal lab has been searching for insect attractants in two ways. The first is the conventional chemical ecological method, also known as finding odors that attract mosquitoes. The second is the method Leal has named 'inverse chemical ecology' that includes the study of the olfactory after identifying the smell of attractants.

Mosquito populations are applied to two types of traps: conventional carbonic traps and breeding female mosquito traps. The number of mosquitoes caught by carbonic traps is less affected than the number of mosquitoes caught in the breeding female mosquito trap.

Each female mosquito can lay 200 eggs.(Photo: glynncounty.org)

Leal said: 'Reproductive traps are more important for surveillance because it catches mosquitoes that have just sucked blood, so they are more likely to be poisoned'.

By controlling reproductive traps with West Nile-infected mosquitoes, mosquito and vector control areas as well as health workers can determine the right time to spray.

According to Leal, another benefit of reproductive traps is that when the females are caught, it is not that we only destroy them but hundreds of its descendants. 'Each female mosquito can lay about 200 eggs, and have a reproductive cycle of about 5 times. So when we catch a mosquito carrying eggs, we can remove about 500 other female mosquitoes. '

Entomology researcher William Reisen of the University of California, Davis says that experimenting with mosquitoes in urban environments is really difficult, but reproductive traps are extremely important.

According to Reisen, Culex quinquefasciatus , the male home-grown mosquito , draws blood from many hosts, so West Nile virus can spread rapidly through birds and humans.

Reisen said: 'Experimenting with mosquitoes in urban environments will still be a major challenge until the research on reproductive processes allows the development of major catchable mosquito mosquito traps. If female mosquitoes have recently sucked blood, they will be more likely to be poisoned. '

Leal said that the compound used in the research 'is quite simple and cheap' so it would be a great benefit 'not only for us, but also the third world countries where the mosquito is Culex quinquefasciatus is a problem. great deals'.

The researchers began pre-testing at Davis and Sacramento but when airborne sprays were used to reduce the rate of West Nile virus they were carrying in Recife, Brazil - the city where they were Hypertensive lymphatic filariasis

Scientists involved in the study include Wei Xi, Yuko Ishida, Zain Syed, Nicolas Latte, Angela Chen and Tania Morgan (of the University of California, Davis); Anthony Cornel - associate professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis and director of the Mosquito Control Research Laboratory located at Kearney Agricultural Center, Parlier; with Roswellela MR Barbosa and André Furtado of the Department of Entomology, Center of Centro de Pesquisas Ageu Magalhaes-Fiocruz, Recife, Brazil.