al remedies to tackle mosquito menace

Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

What are the awful choices that victims of mosquitoes have to face? Either being tortured by
being bitten millions of times, or never venturing out in the evenings, covering yourself from head
to toeand still being bitten right through a T-shirt or socks, getting malaria or dengue. Two
children a day die in India from being bitten. And as global warming increases, mosquitoes will
increase their spread and ferocity.
The other choice is to use the chemical repellents on the market all of which have poison
clearly marked on them, and die of something else. The repellent sprays mostly use diethylmeta-toluamide (DEET), a chemical that can cause rashes, swelling, eye irritation, brain swelling
in children, anaphylactic shock, low blood pressure and even death. You can rub that dreadful
chemical cream all over you and stink. Then you can use insecticide incense coils and keep the
mosquitoes away. The point is that they stink just as much and are also poisonous.
So what can be done?
Why not grow and make your own repellent. Plant a few stalks of lemon grass (Cymbopogon
citratus) anywhere in your garden or in pots in your verandah. Within a few months they will
become clumps. You can use the stalks as herbs in your salad. It grows quickly. It keeps the
mosquitoes away. It contains something similar to citronella oil but is far more effective.
You can rub the long, grassy leaves on the skin, but the stalk works even better.
Here is how one user describes it - 'Take one stalk of fresh lemon grass. Grip it near the ground
and give it a sharp sideways tug to break it off from the clump. Peel off the outer leaves, snap off
the grass blades behind the swollen stem at the base. Bend the stem between your fingers,
loosening it, rub it vigorously between your palms so that it fractures into a kind of fibrous juicy
mass, and rub this mass over all exposed skin, covering thoroughly.'
It has a pleasant smell and the protection lasts a minimum of 4-5 hours.
You can make a tincture of lemon grass that can be sprayed. Some people use a base of gin or
vodka. Chop up the cores of five or six stalks of lemon grass, put them in a blender with a
tumblerful of spirits, blend thoroughly, strain, and put it in a sprayer.
Actually you don't need alcohol to dissolve the lemon grass essential oil. It works just as well if
you blend it with water and shake the sprayer before using it.
If you can't grow lemon grass just buy some lemon grass essential oil, which is easy to find and
notexpensive. Add a couple of other essential oils for extra effectiveness: a combination of lemon
grass oil, citronella oil and eucalyptus oil gives good protection all day. Mix about 1 ml each of
lemon grass oil, citronella oil and eucalyptus oil with 100150 ml of water.
Other plant oils mosquitoes don't like are citronella, jojoba, neem, witch hazel, tea tree oil,
peppermint, lemon basil, lemon oregano, lemon geranium, catnip, eucalyptus and pennyroyal.
Deforestation and unchecked growth of cities without planned sewage are two of the factors
causing an alarming increase in mosquitoes. The World Health Organization says 'global
warming is also expanding the range of mosquitoes that carry malaria, putting millions more
humans at risk. Malaria mosquitoes (Anopheles sp.) are appearing in areas where they've never
been seen before. In the history of the world, more people have died from diseases transmitted
by mosquitoes than from all the fighting in all the wars.'
Malaria infects approximately 110 million people a year, and with increasing drug resistance, the
problem is worsening, while attempts to control the mosquitoes with pesticides have proved
ineffective. In fact countries like India, who still have not banned DDT, kill an even larger number
of humans and just through malaria. There are 50 million cases each year of dengue and the

incidence is rising.
Bed Nets were proposed as the answer and thousands of chemically treated mosquito nets were
given away free in Africa. But, according to a study from Senegal published in The Lancet,
mosquitoes quickly develop resistance to bed nets treated with insecticide.
So, the search needs to intensify for safe, cheap, effective, locally available alternatives to
insecticides and to the malaria drug treatments that no longer work. In other words, plants.
Chinese scientists have extracted an anti-malarial drug from theArtemisia annuafern, traditionally
used against malaria for hundreds of years. It is now used in many countries and is proving
effective.
In India, a homemade mosquito repellent against the Anopheles mosquito can be made from
low-cost neem oil from the neem treeAzadirachta indicamixed with coconut oil in concentrations
of 1-2. Neem is also proving effective against malaria itself, not just the mosquito that carries the
parasite. One active component of the plant, gedunin, is said to be as effective as quinine on
malaria-infected cell cultures.
Peppermint oil is also turning out to be a new, cheap weapon in the fight against mosquito-borne
diseases such as malaria, filariasis, dengue fever and West Nile virus. The oil not only repels
adult mosquitoes but also kills the larvae. It is particularly effective against theAnopheles
culicifaciesmosquito.
Another promising candidate is catnip. Researchers report that nepetalactone, the essential oil in
catnip,is about ten times more effective at repelling mosquitoes than DEET the compound
used in most commercial insect repellents.
The women of my Parliamentary constituency Pilibhit have an answer that I have been using for
years. It is a combination of large round cow dung tablets mixed with samagri. Light one up and
take it round the house. The mosquitoes keep away and the air smells as if you are doing a
pooja havan in the house. It should be on sale in a few months as an entrepreneur is working
with them. The machine was designed by Prof. Anil Gupta of IIM Ahmedabad's group and I hope
this solves the poverty problems of some women, the gobar problems of the gaushalas and the
mosquito problems of India.
To join the animal welfare movement

contactgandhim@nic.in,www.peopleforanimalsindia.org
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