Isca launches three products to combat Aedes aegypti, Culex and Anopheles

Isca Technologies has recently launched three new technologies to combat the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which is the vector of diseases like Zika, Chikungunya and dengue. Besides it, the products offer an effective management and control of two other critical vectors: Culex (the vector of the West Niles Virus) and Anopheles (malaria).

The first technology is LBS, an intelligent device to detect flying insects. According to Isca, the product is cheap and extremely precise. It detects, identifies and monitors the presence of adult mosquitos in a given environment.

This allows that vector control programs to characterize and quantify the population of mosquitos in targets areas in terms of composition of species and its relative densities all in real-time. This information enables professionals to determine if control actions are necessary, the effectiveness degree and how long they are effective.

The second technology is Vectrax, a spraying formulation, which attracts and kills mosquitos through simulation of the smell of the plants nectars, and has as target the adult mosquitos of any specie. The mosquitos of both sexes seek the nectar almost daily and the females feed themselves several times before biting someone seeking blood. Therefore, the Vectrax decimates the local vector population before that they have the opportunity to attack the hosts and transmit diseases.

A third technology of mosquito control is the SPLAT BAC, design for the control of the population in larval stage. It is a long-duration larvicide that can be sprayed preventively on mosquito breeding. The product attracts pregnant females to deposit its eggs on treated water – and then the formulation attracts and kills the larvae making the breeding unproductive.

According to Dr. Agenor Mafra-Neto, Isca CEO, “the effective use of these three new technologies within an integrated program of vector control will have a big chance of interrupting completely the transmission of the diseases through mosquitos like Zika, dengue and malaria.”

"We should fix as our relentless effort to reach the eradication of Aedes aegypti in wide areas, instead of simply attempting to look other disease that this mosquito transmits. Now we are very busy fighting against Zika. Before it was against Chikungunya and dengue. Now we need to do a combined effort to eradicate Aedes, the vector of these diseases until the last mosquito is eliminated and before the next terrible disease appears. In the past, we were capable of gathering efforts and eradicate mosquitos in major geographic extensions. We still do it today to eradicate agricultural plagues. Why not to do it with Aedes aegypti,” concludes Mafra-Neto.