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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Mosquito and Fly Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #310111
Title: Field evaluations of topical arthropod repellents in North, Central, and South America

Author
item LAWRENCE, KENDRA - Walter Reed Army Medical Center
item ACHEE, NICOLE - University Of Notre Dame
item Bernier, Ulrich
item MUNDAL, KIRK - Naval Medical Research Center
item BENANTE, JOHN - Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Submitted to: Journal of Medical Entomology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/9/2014
Publication Date: 9/1/2014
Citation: Lawrence, K.L., Achee, N.L., Bernier, U.R., Mundal, K.D., Benante, J.P. 2014. Field evaluations of topical arthropod repellents in North, Central, and South America. Journal of Medical Entomology. 51(5):980-988.

Interpretive Summary: Scientists at the USDA-ARS, Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology in Gainesville, FL, in collaboration with scientists from the United States Army Medical Material Development Activity, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, the U.S. Navy Medical Research Unit-6 and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research have studies the performance of commercially available mosquito repellents. Tests were conducted in locations in North, Central and South America. Experiments showed that the commercial repellents that contain DEET, picardin or IR3535 did protect volunteers from mosquito bites for several hours. The results of this study can be used by the U.S. military to recommend repellents to protect people from mosquito bites. Other governmental agencies, such as the US CDC can use this information to advise travelers on mosquito repellents to use when they want to protect themselves from mosquito bites.

Technical Abstract: Recently, vector-borne diseases have been resurging in endemic areas and expanding their geographic range into non-endemic areas. This creates a major public health concern as naïve populations are exposed to pathogens that cause these diseases. Personal topical repellents, recommended by the CDC and WHO, remain a major first line of defense against these diseases. We evaluated the repellent efficacy of four new EPA-registered repellent formulated products, two with picaridin as the active ingredient and two with IR3535, against a standard DEET-based formulated product. The products were compared against a wide range of vector species with human volunteers under field conditions across the Americas to determine their performance relative to that of the DEET-based formulation. Another objective of this study was to assess their suitability for use by the US military. Our studies demonstrated that the new formulations performed as well as the standard US military repellent and could be recommended for use.