Duration of repellency of various synthetic and plant-derived preparations for Culicoides imicola, the vector of African horse sickness virus

Summary

Objectives of the study were threefold: to find a safer and longer lasting repellent of the biting midge Culicoides imicola than di-ethyl toluamide (DEET), to examine whether the current recommendations in Israel for application of repellents during an outbreak of C. imicola-borne pathogens are justified; and to examine whether plant-derived preparations that have no known detrimental side effects are potential replacements of synthetic repellents. Of the seven repellents tested, those inferior to DEET were: oregano and Herbipet which showed a slight non-significant repellency for 2 h and 1 h respectively and Stomoxin which showed significant (P <0.05) repellency for only 1 h. As the active ingredient of Stomoxin is permethrin, this suggests that recommendations to spray animals with this insecticide to prevent the spread of C. imicola-borne pathogens are not useful. Tri-Tec14^TM showed significant (P <0.05) repellency with respect to controls for 2 h only, but performed similarly to, or slightly better than DEET. The repellents clearly superior to DEET were: the plant-derived material Ag1000 that repelled significantly (P <0.05) with respect to controls for up to 4 h following a similar pattern to but somewhat more strongly than DEET, and pyrethroid-T which exerted significant (P <0.05) repellency for 9h. Pyrethroid-T proved to be the best repellent tested and if sprayed nightly it might provide protection from C. imicola-borne pathogens.