Mundo Sano Today

     

Mundo Sano specialists and Universidad de Buenos
Aires published a piece of research on dengue
carried out by the PLoS Journal.

A team of researchers from Mundo Sano foundation and the School of Exact and Natural Sciences of Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires published a paper analyzing the residual effect of a larvae killer (temephos) used in dengue prevention campaigns. This research is part of the prestigious PloS (Public Library of Science) Journay, published in the United States, which is a referent to the international scientific community.

The paper “Water Use Practices Limit the Effectiveness of a Temephos-Based Aedes aegypti Larval Control Program in Northern Argentina” compared the duration of the larvae killer effectiveness in trials under laboratory conditions with that under "field" conditions inside water storage tanks in houses of the 1° de Mayo neighborhood, in Clorinda, Province of Formosa.

According to the research, the community practices in terms of use and management of the water that is kept in tanks for its storage have a direct influence on the concentration of the product dissolved in water: as the days elapse, the larvae killing action is gradually lost and, as a consequence, so is the control effectiveness. It is for that reason that specialists have warned that new alternatives should be looked for in order to continue performing larvae control without increasing the number of interventions with temephos.

The activities were designed estimating the duration of the larvae killer residual effect in field conditions, comparing their efficiency in the methodology of application, identifying the factors associated with the loss of residual effect, and describing the Aedes aegypti larvae evolution through time.