The Nuclear Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has prepared an environment-friendly bio-larvicide for birth control of mosquitoes spreading fatal diseases like dengue and Zika.
The NIFA bio-larvicide is an extract of pepper nigrum and some other organic compounds and has proved to be a strong controller of different breeds of mosquitoes, including Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus that spreads dengue and Zika ailments respectively, informs NIFA Peshawar Bio-Chemist, Tariq Nawaz Khattak.
Talking to the news agency, Tariq Khattak said mosquitoes are the carrier for various diseases causing malaria, yellow fever, filariasis, Japanese encephalitis and chikungunya. Among these diseases, dengue hemorrhagic fever, yellow fever and chikungunya are endemic throughout the country. It is transmitted by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus—about two-third of the world population lives in areas infested with dengue vectors.
In Pakistan, he continued, dengue first broke in a few years earlier and more than 5,522 cases, with more than 2,000 positive and 50 deaths, were reported.
The dengue situation in Pakistan is almost alarming with a tremendous risk of an epidemic, Tariq warned.
There is no vaccine or a specific way for dengue control; unfortunately, people are using only insecticides for the larvae control, which is harmful to human beings and not much effective in mosquito birth control, he added.
During NIFA bio-larvicide preparation, special focus was given on environment-friendly vaccine which is prepared through botanicals that are likely to induce adverse environmental and health effects, he revealed.
The synthetic insecticides adversely affect the environment by contaminating air, water, and soil, whereas the bio-larvicide is organic and environment-friendly, not contaminating the water or environment, he claimed.
According to the finding of a research conducted by entomology lab of NIFA, it was found that bio-larvicide has larvicidal activity, and at each tested concentrations showed complete (100%) mortality of larva after 24 hours exposure time.
Further research work is needed to explore the potential of tested larvicides as a bio-pesticide in the field which can prove as a useful alternative to chemical insecticides.
Thus, NIFA bio-larvicide has opened new vistas of efficacy and biosafety paradigms in containing the birth of mosquitoes causing fatal diseases like dengue and Zika, concludes the research study.
Tariq Nawaz said the bio-larvicide is also economical and can give very good results by using it in water to contain mosquito population by killing it at the larval stage.