Effect of Petroleum Products on the Larvicidal Activity of Aedes Mosquitoes in Ika North-East LGA, Delta State, Nigeria

The recent yellow fever outbreak in Delta State, especially in Ika North East local government, triggered the need for this study.

Diseases caused by Aedes are by far raising serious concerns in the world.

To evaluate the larvicidal activity on the use of petroleum products in the control of Aedes mosquitoes.

Mosquito species were collected using 350ml deep ladle and identified in the field using their resting positions in their local habitats. Larvae and pupae were separately exposed to 0.005, 0.01, and 0.02%ml of kerosene and petrol in single and mixed forms. The experimental sets were triplicated. Data was analyzed using ANOVA and Turkey’s test to compare mortality, and time of mortality. LC50 and LC95 were computed using Probit analysis.

Results revealed that all concentrations of treatment caused complete mortality in larvae except in 0.005%ml and 0.01%ml of kerosene alone and kerosene and petrol mixture at 50 minutes of exposure. All concentrations of treatment equally caused complete mortality in pupae except in 0.005%ml of kerosene (Mean= 10.00) at 30 minutes. The differences between mortality and time mortality records were significant (p< 0.05). Kerosene and petrol mixture and kerosene alone had the lower LC50 and LC95 0.0021 and 0.0088ml respectively in the larvae group. Kerosene and petrol mixture had lower LC50 and LC95 0.0037 and 0.0050, respectively.

Therefore, scaling up this intervention on a large scale in endemic areas would reduce larvae density and disease outbreaks.