Efficacy study of indigenously developed mosquito repellent BiteFree & its comparison with commercially available mosquito repellent

Mosquitoes act as a vector for most of the life threatening diseases like malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, chikungunya fever, filariasis, encephalitis, West Nile Virus infection, etc. It is estimated that more than 700 million people become ill each year from mosquito-transmitted disease and 3 million people die from malaria, including one child every 30 seconds. In response, numerous measures have been used to protect people from mosquitoes, such as chemical, biological, environmental and personal protection. Currently available repellents are either synthetic chemicals like Ethyle hexanediol (EHD), ethyl-3 (N-butylacetamidp) propionate (IR3535) or N, N-diethyl-m-toluamide (DEET), or plant derived chemicals such as Citronella, eucalyptus & lemongrass. The drawback of using plant-based repellents is that many of them are made up of relatively volatile constituents and are generally not effective over long periods of time. The best-known chemical insect repellent is N, N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide (DEET). The efficacy of DEET providing a long-lasting protection of up to 8 hours from time of application against many blood feeding insects has been documented in several studies. In the present study, Bite-Free a indigenously developed mosquito repellent cream, in which active ingredient is DEET (25% w/w) was evaluated for its efficacy under controlled laboratory conditions, using arm in cage method, based on a WHO standardized procedures (WHO/HTM/NTD/WHOPES/ 2009.4) against three major disease vectors: Anopheles, Culex and Aedes mosquitoes, in comparison of its compatible, commercially available mosquito repellents, "A". The study was conducted at Centre of Excellence in Science and Technologies (CESAT), Islamabad-Pakistan from June, 2013 to June, 2016. Mosquito colonies were reared in Insectory and maintained at 27-32 °C and 60%-70% relative humidity. All collected mosquitoes were morphologically identified by using the key ZOOTAXA-589 (2004) under stereomicroscope model No.1106. Approximately 200 adult mosquitoes aged 7 to 10 days old were used in this trial. Before the beginning of study, informed consent was obtained from all volunteers. During the trial all volunteers were monitored for possible side-effects of the repellent. A medical doctor was on hand during the trials to respond to any side effects. Protective Efficacy of BiteFree was found 91.5% & protection time was 6-7 hours and no any side effect was observed during trials. While Protective Efficacy of commercially available mosquito repellent reference lotion "A" was 86.4% & protection time was 6-7 hours. Irritation and redness of skin were noted in few subjects. Shelf life of BiteFree was 03 years and reference lotion "A" shelf life was found one year.