Repellency of Lantana camara leaves smoke against female anopheles mosquitoes

Abstract

The study was done to investigate the Mosquito repellency properties of the smoke of Lantana camara in different solvents viz; methanol, ethyl acetate, ethanol and diethyl ether. Plant samples were dried, burned and extracted using various solvents. The extracts were concentrated using a Rota vapor and various concentrations ranging from 50ppm-1000ppm of the repellents were prepared and evaluated. Methanol extract at 400ppm concentration significantly gave the highest protection against the bites of female Anopheles mosquito (P> 0.01) for over 300 minutes. This extract yielded significantly the better protection time (P> 0.05). The methanol extract seemed to have a steady repellency over a longer period than the rest of the extracts. The results from this study shows that the plant Lantana camara can be used effectively to repel Anopheles mosquitoes, hence a great achievement in the development of safe organic repellants to control transmission of malaria by female anopheles mosquitoes. However, more research needs to be done to identify the specific compounds which are repelling the mosquitoes their structures and also mode of action.