Electronic mosquito repellents — buzzing devices marketed to prevent malaria — don’t prevent bites and therefore don’t prevent disease transmission, according to a new review of studies.
“EMRs should not be manufactured, advertised or used for mosquito bite and malaria prevention, as they do not do so,” said lead author A. Ali Enayati, Ph.D., lecturer in medical entomology at the Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences in Sari, Iran.
The review appears in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
The researcher analyzed 10 studies conducted in North America, Russia and Africa. All were field-based studies — occurring in a natural setting rather than a laboratory.
All studies “found that there was no difference in the number of mosquitoes that landed on the bare body parts of the human subjects with or without an EMR,” Enayati said. “Hence, these devices do not work in repelling mosquitoes. As EMRs do not repel mosquitoes, they would not prevent malaria.”
Malaria, which kills more than a million persons every year, is most deadly among children and is particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. It is transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes infected with the malaria parasite. No vaccine against malaria is available.
For more info http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070417194230.htm
0 comments