A combination of indoor spraying and use of insecticide-treated bed nets has slashed cases of malaria, but now researchers are reporting widespread resistance of mosquitoes to the chemicals used to kill them. Agricultural pesticides appear to be playing a role in fostering this resistance.

Original Source

In Africa, a combination of better medicines and the widespread use of insecticides to kill mosquitoes has led to the decline in malaria cases and deaths. Millions of people in places like Dano are living longer, healthier lives because of this public health campaign. They are also more prosperous when they are malaria free, because the disease keeps kids home from school, prevents adults from working, and forces poor families to spend money on health care.

Recent organic diet intervention studies suggest that diet is a significant source of pesticide exposure in young children. These studies have focused on children living in suburban communities. The objective of the study was to determine whether consuming an organic diet reduced urinary pesticide metabolite concentrations in 40 Mexican-American children, 3-6 years, living in California urban and agricultural communities.

Insect pollination is a vital ecosystem service that maintains biodiversity and sustains agricultural crop yields. Social bees are essential insect pollinators, so it is concerning that their populations are in global decline.

Cypermethrin is a synthetic pyrethoid mainly used against mango insect pests. Clams are good indicators of pesticide pollution and are known to be tolerant to pesticide accumulation. Acute toxicity experiment of Cypermethrin is carried out on estuarine clam, Marcia opima. The clam exhibited significant increase in protein content of gill in LC0 and LC50 group of clams while foot, male gonad and female gonad exhibited considerable decrease in protein content. Whereas, in LC0, mantle showed high protein content. In LC50 group, hepatopancreas exhibited high protein content.

The WHO releases action plan to tackle the spread of insecticide-resistant mosquitoes.

Aedes aegypti dispersion is the major reason for the increase in dengue transmission in South America. In Brazil, control of this mosquito strongly relies on the use of pyrethroids and organophosphates against adults and larvae, respectively. In consequence, many Ae. aegypti field populations are resistant to these compounds. Resistance has a significant adaptive value in the presence of insecticide treatment.

Key weapons in the fight against malaria, pyrethroid insecticides, are losing their edge. Over the past decade, billions of dollars have been spent on distributing long-lasting pyrethroid-treated bed nets and on indoor spraying. Focused in Africa, where most malaria deaths occur, these efforts have greatly reduced the disease's toll. But they have also created intense selection pressure for mosquitoes to develop resistance.

In response to calls for more direct measurements of pesticide residues in foods consumed by children, and to compare direct measures of pesticide residues in foods representing actual consumption with those reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program, Lu et al.

Although Anopheles funestus is difficult to rear, it is crucial to analyse field populations of this malaria vector in order to successfully characterise mechanisms of insecticide resistance observed in this species in Africa. In this study we carried out a large-scale field collection and rearing of An.

Pages