Sep. 9, 2013 — In an advance toward providing mosquito-plagued people, pets and livestock with an invisibility cloak against these blood-sucking insects, scientists today described discovery of substances that occur naturally on human skin and block mosquitoes' ability to smell and target their victims.
Ulrich Bernier, Ph.D., who gave the talk, cited the pressing need for better ways to combat mosquitoes. Far from being just a nuisance, mosquitoes are more deadly to humans than any other animal. Their bites transmit malaria and other diseases that kill an estimated one million people around the world each year. In the United States, mosquitoes spread rare types of encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. They also transmit heart worms to pet dogs and cats.
"Repellents have been the mainstay for preventing mosquito bites," said Bernier. "The most widely used repellant, DEET, is quite effective and has been in use for a long time. However, some people don't like the feel or the smell of DEET. We are exploring a different approach, with substances that impair the mosquito's sense of smell. If a mosquito can't sense that dinner is ready, there will be no buzzing, no landing and no bite."
Female mosquitoes, which suck blood to obtain a protein needed to produce fertile eggs, can smell people from over 100 feet away. The Mosquito and Fly Unit at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service-Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology in Gainesville, Fla., has been doing research on mosquito repellents since the 1940s. In the 1990s, they accumulated information on substances secreted through the human skin or formed by bacteria on the skin that make some people more attractive to mosquitoes than others.
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