The great Australian bite
Use a repellent to avoid harmful mosquitoes this summer.
Just one mosquito can create a heck of a fuss. One minute you're relaxing on the deck with a drink, the next you're jumping around slapping your ankles, yelling for the insect repellent. Should you be reaching for the DEET-drenched brand your family has used for years? Or a "natural" one with a dash of organic citronella, lavender or tea-tree oil?
Entomologist Stephen Doggett, who runs the NSW Health arbovirus program which monitors mosquitoes and the diseases they carry is firmly in the DEET (diethyl toluamide) camp.
"There's been many studies that have shown that things like citronella , tea-tree oil, eucalyptus oil give very, very poor protection," Doggett says. "Some of them only give protection for five minutes and they give a false sense of security to people ... using these repellents may increase the risk of disease transmission from mosquitoes [such as Ross River virus or Barmah Forest virus] because people think they're protected when they're not.
参考译文:
澳大利亚蚊虫叮咬危害极大
今夏使用驱蚊剂避免有害的蚊虫叮咬
一只蚊子就能让你手忙脚乱。前一分钟你还正在甲板上休息品茶，接着跳起来拍打脚踝，大声喊着要驱蚊剂。使用多年来家用的液体避蚊胺还是用含少量亚香茅、熏衣草的“天然驱蚊剂”或茶树油？
负责新南威尔士卫生局虫媒病毒项目的昆虫学家斯蒂芬•多格特赞成使用避蚊胺。
该项目监控蚊子和它们自身携带的多种疾病。多格特称，“许多研究已经表明象亚香茅、茶树油和桉树油驱蚊效果很差，其中一些仅能维持五分钟而且给人们一种安全的假象…使用这些驱蚊用品可能使蚊子传播疾病的风险大增（例如罗斯河病毒或巴马森林病毒），因为当人们认为他们避免了蚊虫叮咬时，其实不然。
责任编辑：虫虫
