Field evaluations of topical arthropod repellents in North, Central, and South America.

Recently, vector-borne diseases have been resurging in endemic areas and expanding their geographic range into nonendemic areas. Such changes have refocused attention to the potential for major public health events, as naive populations are exposed to these pathogens. Personal topical repellents, recommended by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization, remain a first line of protection against infection. The current study evaluated the repellent efficacy of four new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-registered topical repellent products, two with picaridin as the active ingredient and two with IR3535, against a standard DEET (N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide)-based product. All products were evaluated against a wide range of vector species under field conditions across the Americas. Human volunteers were used to evaluate product efficacy as compared with a well-known DEET-based formulation and determine suitability for use by the U.S. military. Findings demonstrated the new formulations performed as well as the standard U.S. military repellent and could be recommended for use.

Field-user acceptability evaluation of a new stick camouflage face paint formulation with and without the insect repellent DEET.

Two newly designed formulations of stick camouflage face paint, one with 30% N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide (DEET) and the other without DEET, were evaluated for acceptability among soldiers upon completion of normal military field training exercises. A total of 156 soldiers participated and completed a self-administered survey answering questions about product acceptability, packaging, and ease of use. Results of the study indicated that soldiers found stick formulations, with and without DEET, to be acceptable for use (62.9% and 83.7%, respectively). This data will be used by the Program Management Office at the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity to support a request to the Armed Forces Pest Management Board to assign a National Stock Number.

A Comparative Study of Mosquito and Sand Fly (Diptera: Psychodidae: Phlebotominae) Sampling Using Dry Ice and Chemically Generated Carbon Dioxide From Three Different Prototype CO2 Generators.

A comparative study was conducted to test the efficiency of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) light traps baited with either dry ice or carbon dioxide (CO2) produced from one of three different sources in collecting mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) in Thailand. Treatments consisted of dry ice pellets, CO2 gas produced from one of three prototype CO2 generator systems (TDA, CUBE, Moustiq-Air Med-e-Cell - MEC), and a CDC light trap without a CO2 source. The best performing prototype from Thailand was then tested in collecting sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae: Phlebotominae) in Greece. A total of 12,798 mosquitoes and 8,329 sand flies were sampled during the experimentation. The most prevalent mosquito species collected in Thailand were: Culex vishnui Theobald > Anopheles minimus Theobald > Culex tritaeniorhynchus Giles > Anopheles sawadwongporni Rattanarithikul & Green. By far the most prevalent sand fly species collected in Thessaloniki was Phlebotomus perfiliewi Parrot followed by Phlebotomus tobbi Adler and Theodor and Phlebotomus simici Nitzulescu. In general, the TDA treatment was the only treatment with no significant difference from the dry ice-treatment in mean trap catches. Although dry ice-baited traps caught higher numbers of mosquitoes and sand flies than the TDA-baited traps, there was no difference in the number of species collected. Results indicate that the traps baited with the TDA CO2 generator were as attractive as traps supplied with dry ice and, therefore, the TDA CO2 generator is a suitable alternative to dry ice as a source of carbon dioxide for use with adult mosquito and sand fly traps.

Evaluation of efficacy and duration of the stick camouflage face paint with 30% deet against mosquitoes in Belize.

A combination of insect repellent, N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide (deet), with camouflage face paint in a newly designed stick formulation was evaluated on human volunteers under field conditions in Belize during February 2007. The formulation provided over 90% protection against mosquitoes for 8 hours and at least 80% protection for 12 hours, with 100% protection for 2 to 4 hours after application.