Ashish Uniyal ¹, Sachin N. Tikar ¹, Shakti V. Shukla ², Om P. Agrawal ³, Devanathan Sukumaran ¹, Vijay Veer ⁴

Affiliations
1 Vector Management Division, Defence R and D Establishment, Gwalior-474002, IN
2 Fragrance and Flavour Development Center, G. T. Road, Makrand Nagar, Kannuaj-209726, IN
3 School of Studies in Zoology, Jiwaji University, Gwalior-474 011, IN
4 Defence Research Laboratory, Tezpur, Assam-784001, IN

Abstract

Essential oils are natural volatile substances from plants and they are used as protective measure against blood-sucking insects. The objective of the study was to determine the effective repellency of 23 essential oils at various doses against female mosquitoes Aedes aegypti under laboratory conditions using K&D module and to identify chemical constituents of the oils by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS). The results showed that litsea oil exhibited effective mean percentage repellency of 43%, 86%, 93% and 100% at 0.01%, 0.1%, 1.0% and 10% concentration, respectively with the median effective dose (ED₅₀ ) of 0.012 (95% CI= 0.003-0.028). At 20% concentration, litsea oil showed 83% repellency upto 2 hr and the dominant component of litsea oil was identified as Zcitral by GC/MS. The studies indicate that these oils could be used in the preparation of herbal mosquito repellents which are safe to human beings.

Keywords

Essential Oils, Repellent, K and D Module, GC/MS, Aedes aegypti.

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