Commentary
Temba V, Lyaruu LJ, Mahande AM
Abstract
Personal protection tools are of paramount importance for the control of residual malaria transmission in both urban and rural settings. The current study evaluated the repellant efficacy of Tabard lotion and Tabard spray against a standard DEET (N, N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide). Bioassays were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of Tabard lotion, Tabard spray and DEET against Anopheles gambiae s.s. in the laboratory and in field situations. Field evaluations were carried out from 1800 h to 0300 h. Protection efficiency of above 90% was achieved for Tabard (both spray and lotion) and DEET while the feeding inhibition was not found to be statistically different, but decreased for both after 8 hours of application from 100% to 60.98% in spray and 98.81% to 91.99% in lotion. Probing inhibition of the two repellants decreased with time. No any adverse side effect was reported from the field and laboratory participants who applied the evaluated products in their skin. The findings of this study have proved to be protective for 8 from anopheles mosquitoes bites.