New mosquito repellent

US researchers have identified a number of potential new insect repellents that are up to three times more effective than DEET mosquito repellent - a versatile ingredient in most insect repellents and mites.

Mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever still cause significant mortality in humans and pets in many parts of the world.(Photo: iStockphoto)

While there is going to be a mosquito repellent produced on the market, laboratory tests have produced amazing results with some long-lasting insect repellent chemicals within 73 days and lots of substances are 40 to 50 days.

The study, published in the latest edition of the American Academy of Sciences report, says that compared to the average number of DEET mosquito repellents is 17.5 days.

The research paper shows that DEET mosquito repellent allows broad protection for many insects, but mosquitoes continue to transmit diseases such as malaria and dengue.

Dr Ulrich Bernier, a chemist working for the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Fly and Mosquito Research Unit, said: 'It would be good to have mosquito repellents more effective to against a number of larger insects'.

Back in the 40s, USDA scientists spent a decade screening 40,000 chemical compounds in their study to find a more effective insect repellent.

They finally found DEET.

Potential

Volunteers in the study studied the effectiveness of one of the new mosquito repellents.(Photo: Gary Clark)

This time the research team was able to screen out thousands of potential compounds for several months using a drug discovery computer program, which uses information about chemical structures and Insect receptors to predict the effectiveness of mosquito repellents.

They focused their search on compounds known as N-acylpiperidines (related to active ingredients in pepper).

This computer program allows scientists to narrow down an area of ​​2,000 compounds to just 34, then they test these compounds with laboratory volunteers.

Volunteers wore bandages on the arm that filled the standard doses of each compound and put their hands in a mosquito net.

The researchers measured the persistence of compounds - the time until the mosquito repellent faded away and this was marked by the start of a mosquito bite.

The study, which is partly supported by the US Department of Defense, has identified 23 compounds 'equivalent or more effective than DEET chemicals in terms of protection time.'

The research paper reported that 'Amazingly, the number of these substances is three times more protective than DEET'.

The researchers plan to continue testing on 7 of the most promising compounds for the purpose of determining the next generation of DEET chemicals and will continue to see whether they are against a variety of insects. How to effectively coincide.