Original Article
Probable Application of Attractive Toxic Sugar Bait (ATSB) for Dengue Fever and Malaria Vector Control
DOI: 10.6525/TEB.20150825.31(16).002Wei-Tai Hsia1*, Ho-sheng Wu1, Shiou-Pin Lin1, Tien-Ho Kuo2, Yong- Fang Wei3
2015 Vol.31 NO.16
Correspondence Author： Wei-Tai Hsia
- 1.Center for Research, Diagnostics and Vaccine Development, Centersfor Disease Control, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan
- 2.Department of Environmental Engineering, Tung-Nan University, Taiwan
- 3.Department of Public Health, China Medical University, Taiwan
Abstract：
There are over 3,000 kinds of mosquitoes in the world and 132 kinds of them have been found and recorded in Taiwan at present. Lots of vector borne diseases transmitted through mosquito bites, such as dengue fever, malaria, Chikungunya fever, Japanese encephalitis, yellow fever, and Rift Valley fever, etc. are currently classified as notifiable diseases in Taiwan. Dengue fever is mainly transmitted by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus; whereas Aedes aegypti are found in southern part of Taiwan and Aedes albopictus has widely existed in mountains and plains below 1,500 meters above sea level around this country. Malaria is mainly transmitted by Anopheles minimus and Anopheles sinensis, which are found in southern and eastern parts of Taiwan.
In the early days, the pesticide was mainly used to control dengue fever, but there are a lot of derivative results such as drug resistance of vectors, environment pollution and complaint from residents. Even though the government has changed the ways for vector control recently and proposes the new policy, which is to keep the residential environment clean firstly and use pesticides secondarily instead of application of pesticides only, the effect of vector control was less efficient than we expected because of misuse of pesticides by the sprayers sometimes.
Researchers have successfully developed a new form of vector control — attractive toxic sugar bait (ATSB), based on sugar-seeking of mosquitoes and a mixture of oral toxin. The ATSB has been proved useful to reduce mosquito populations in Africa and Florida, USA. Although ATSB is an effective method to be used for mosquito control, it takes time to overcome several limitations before the government officially applies the ATSB technique to control dengue fever.
