Repellency effects of picaridin and DEET against Anopheles stephensi on human volunteers

Abstract

Background: Reduction of mosquito contact by adopting personal protection measures is recommended as a strategy for the management of vector borne diseases. One of the common ways for malaria prevention is to use the chemical repellents. Researchers are trying to introduce more powerful repellents with less side effects. One of these newly found repellents is picaridin (Trade name: Byreple ® or KBR2030 ® ). The aim of this study was to determine the repellency effect of picaridin in Iran. Methods: The study was carried out on four male volunteers, under laboratory conditions and the results compared to the repellency effect of standard DEET by the use of ASTM 951-94 standard method. Results: The effective doses (ED 50 and ED 90 ) of picaridin were determined as 0.0023mg/cm 2 and 0.009 mg/cm 2 respectively, while the ED 50 and ED 90 of DEET were determined as 0.0018mg/cm 2 and 0.0248 mg/cm 2 respectively. Conclusion: This study showed that there is a significant difference between the effective Doses of DEET and Picaridin (P<0.05); Also the t-test showed that the mean protection time of picaridin 20% is significantly higher than DEET 25% (P<0.05).