Different Mosquito Control Measures

Published on by Corrado

Control of mosquitoes is something of utmost importance in the present day with rising number of mosquito borne illnesses. Mosquitoes need to be exterminated using the right tools and with a little bit of effort. These blood thirsty beasts don’t care about boundaries and they can bite you if your neighborhoods are allowing its breeding. So the mosquito control measures can be successful only if public mosquito programs are designed. First and foremost thing that you have to do is to destroy the breeding areas of these mosquitoes. There are both chemical and non-chemical methods that can be adopted for this purpose.

The non-chemical methods include emptying the stagnant water in rain gutters, old tires, buckets, plastic covers, etc. you must regularly change the water in bird baths, fountains, pools, rain barrels etc at least once in a week. Protecting yourself with full sleeved clothing is also highly essential particularly during the dawn and dusk times. Repair your windows or door screens to prevent mosquito entry. Sleeping under mosquito netting can also guarantee you protection from mosquitoes. It is also found that yellow light attracts mosquitoes less than white lights. Besides you may also adopt biological methods by growing some fish species that feeds on mosquito larvae in the water bodies.

Adopting chemical methods for mosquito control is also extremely essential. There are pesticides namely larvicide’s that works to destroy the mosquito larva. Some of them include bacterial insecticides like bacillus thuringiensis israelensis and bacillus sphaericus, insect growth inhibitors like methoprene, organophosphate insecticides like temephos and other materials like mineral oils and monomolecular films. For the purpose of destroying adult mosquitoes particularly when there is an outbreak of mosquito borne illness pesticides namely adulticides can be used. Generally they are sprayed either by aircraft or from the ground using truck mounted sprayers. Most commonly used adulticides are malathion, permethrin, resmethrin and sumithrin. As these insecticides are sprayed as ultra low volume sprays with very low quantity sprayed on a large area, the risk posed due to these chemicals is very low.

Along with providing support to public mosquito control programs, you may also need to protect yourself from mosquito bites when you are in outdoors. There are large numbers of repellents available today in variety of forms. There are chemical repellents like DEET and also many natural mosquito repellents. As DEET based repellents in high concentration can be harmful to children a better option would be to try natural mosquito repellents. Skin armour deep woods soap from skin armour is one among the natural repellents which can protect you for long hours.

Published on Mosquito Repellent

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