Study of commonly found herbs in Malaysia and its ability of anti-mosquito effect

Abstract

Mosquitoes are the most important insect vectors of human disease posing a great threat to our health to which most of the time leads to death. To date mosquitoes have been identified as a vector for diseases such as dengue, dengue hemorrhagic fever, equine encephalitis, yellow fever, malaria and zika. As the spread of the diseases increase, several efforts have been put to control or eradicate mosquitoes. There are many ways to get rid or control this insect but mostly using chemicals which often have side effects on the other living things and environment. The aim of this research is to test and identify locally available herbs which can be instantly used to keep away mosquitoes from humans thus get rid of the unwanted disease. Leave extracts from four types of herbs which are pudina (Mentha x piperita), neem (Azadirachta indica), indian borage (Plectranthus amboinicus) and basil (Ocimum basilicum) were tested against adult mosquitoes and its larvae. The result showed that extract of Indian borage effectively repels the adult mosquito and also kills the larvae. Indian borage is a common herb used for cough in Indian traditional medicine practice. The results showed that extracts of Indian borage able to effectively prevent mosquito from biting and also kill the mosquito larvae within a significant time.