Assessing Lead and Arsenic in Natural Mosquito Repellents | InformativeBD

Godfred Yaw Boanyah, Ruth Brenyah, and Precious Bondzie-Quaye from the different institute of Ghana and China, wrote a research article about Assessing Lead and Arsenic in Natural Mosquito Repellents,entitled "Evaluation of lead and arsenic content of Azardirachta indica seed oil and Citrus sinensis peel oil creams as mosquito repellent ."this research paper published by the International Journal of Biomolecules and Biomedicine (IJBB). an open access scholarly research journal on Biomedicine, under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences|INNSpub, an open access multidiciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

There is an increase preference for plant-based repellents due to their effectiveness, environmentally friendliness and biodegradable nature. It is therefore necessary to ascertain the safety of these repellents by analysing their heavy metal content. This study has shown that lead and arsenic content of Azadirachta indica seed oil cream and Citrus sinensis peel oil cream as mosquito repellent is insignificant and therefore  very safe for use according to the Ghana Standard Authority specification. These results provide new insight into the safety of these natural mosquito repellents.

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Introduction

The use of repellent is an effective and reliable method used in breaking Human-vector transmission cycle of pathogens (Hazarika et al., 2012). Additionally, the application of repellent on clothing and bed nets have shown excellent results in Africa, thus, conferring protection to the individual using them (World Health Organization., 2017; Njumkeng et al., 2019). Moreover, topical repellent is one of the most dependable ways of controlling outdoor biting of mosquitoes especially in rural and farming communities (Wilson et al., 2014).

However, the heavy metal constituent of naturally manufactured repellent creams could be toxic and in turn defeat their overall safety purpose. Exposure of the skin to arsenic can cause a variety of benign skin lesions including hyperpigmentation and hyperkeratosis according to the findings of Bernstam et al. (2002). It was indicated in a recent research that developing countries have high environmental pollution of Lead which may be absorbed by plants from which these natural repellents are made from. Organic Lead may be absorbed directly through the skin and its effects are devastating. High levels of lead in repellents when inhaled can result in decreased performance in some tests of cognitive performance that measure functions of the nervous system (Wani, Ara and Usmani, 2015).

In the last two decades, an intensive effort has been made by several researchers to investigate the safety of diethyltoluamide (DEET), one of the most widely used and reliable insect repellents available(Goodyer and Behrens, 1998). However, many users of repellent are still concerned about the safety use of DEET (Shukla, Wijayapala and Vankar, 2018). Furthermore, the easily biodegradative nature of plant-based repellents and friendliness to the environment has added to their preference by customers in recent years (Ketkar and Ketkar, 2005; Tripathi et al., 2016) but the toxicity of some heavy metals in these natural topical repellents have not been given much attention. This study seeks to evaluate the Arsenic and lead content of Azadirachta indica seed oil Cream and Citrus sinensis peel oil cream as mosquito repellent and as as well compare them to the standard maximum allowable concentration requirement of these metals in topical repellents.

Reference:

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Source: Evaluation of lead and arsenic content of Azardirachta indica seed oil and Citrus sinensis peel oil creams as mosquito repellent