Does Zika virus infection affect mosquito response to repellents?

ABSTRACT: The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that people travelling to or living in areas with Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreaks or epidemics adopt prophylactic measures to reduce or eliminate mosquito bites, including the use of insect repellents. It is, however, unknown whether repellents are effective against ZIKV-infected mosquitoes, in part because of the ethical concerns related to exposing a human subject's arm to infected mosquitoes in the standard arm-in-cage assay. We used a previously developed, human subject-free behavioural assay, which mimics a human subject to evaluate the top two recommended insect repellents. Our measurements showed that DEET provided significantly higher protection than picaridin provided against noninfected, host-seeking females of the southern house mosquit

SUBMITTER: Leal WS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5311973 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature