Repellent activities by ultrasonic sound against the mosquito Aedes aegypti

The mosquito is a dangerous vector insect, which transfer various diseases like dengue virus, malaria and West Nile virus. Around the globe, researches on the repellent responses of mosquitoes have intensively studied. Among these, DEET (N, N-diethly-meta-toluamide) has used frequently make the repellent against mosquitoes. Even though the performance of chemical repellent shows outstanding effect on the repellent behavior of the mosquito, the side effect caused by these chemical repellents induced to change research directions to new repellents using natural essential oils or sustainable eco-friendly materials. We have employed that a novel emitters of ultra-sonic sounds lead to the change of mosquito behaviors that avoid ultra-sonic sounds. For the first time, using wind tunnel and semi-field (room size field) conditions, we have confirmed that the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, showed repellent behaviors. Despite more detailed mechanisms of repellency caused by ultra-sonic sounds needed, ultra-sonic sounds tested here turns out to be one of the powerful repellent resources among the various materials, suggesting that ultra-sonic sounds will be a possible spatial repellent against mosquitoes.