Long-Lasting Insecticide-Treated Textiles Preventing from Mosquito Bite and Mosquito-Borne Diseases

Abstract

Among all the vector-borne diseases occurring worldwide, mosquito-borne diseases prevail by far resulting in approximately 700,000 deaths from clinical complications annually. Although malaria still accounts for the highest disease burden, currently emerging and resurging mosquito-borne viral diseases like dengue, West Nile, chikungunya, Rift Valley and even yellow fever viruses became either epidemic or pandemic, affecting many regions in the world. In February 2016, the World Health Organization declared the Zika virus public health emergency of international concern following large outbreaks with rapid geographical spread in the Pacific and Southern America, while Mayaro, Wesselsbron, Usutu and St. Louis encephalitis viruses have been identified as new disease agents showing pandemic potential. The transmission of mosquito-borne disease agents can be readily interrupted by prevention from potentially infective mosquito bites. Therefore, personal protective measures against bites of hematophagous vectors constitute the first line of defence against mosquito-borne diseases. Besides the use of skin repellents and bite-proof textiles, long-lasting insecticide-impregnated bed nets and clothing have been developed during recent years which synergistically contribute to optimized personal protection. The aim of this study is to give an overview on the most current and widely used textile impregnation techniques, their efficacy in public health protection as well as their mosquito bionomic-specific use against daytime-, night-time-, indoor- and/or outdoor-biting vector mosquitoes. We strongly recommend the use of long-lasting permethrin-impregnated clothing for the prevention of mosquito-borne diseases transmitted by daytime- and night-time-active-, indoor- and outdoor-biting mosquitoes, including chikungunya, dengue and Zika fevers combined with the extensive use of long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets preventing primarily from nocturnal, anthropophilic, indoor-biting mosquitoes vectoring, e.g. malaria, lymphatic filariosis and West Nile fever.