Anticipating possible outbreak of vector-borne diseases, the Horticulture Department of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) has grown eco-friendly plant ‘Agave Americana’ in huge (thousands) numbers in its nurseries to eliminate the chances of mosquitoes breeding.
The plant’s extract can be poured into cooler to prevent mosquito breeding in place of insecticides to root out mosquitoes. The leaf extract of “Agave Americana’ has a “larvicidal efficacy”. The leaf extracts of Agave Americana is, also known as Century Plant or Kamal Cactus.
According to entomologists, when mosquitoes are exposed to the leaf extract of this plant at the larval stage they die within hours. They also said that the plant does not have any harmful effect on the environment or mankind compared to synthetic insecticides used for spraying. The Horticulture department has also informed that the plant can be collected for free from the nurseries.
Additional Commissioner (Health) Pankaj Kumar Singh said that this is an eco-friendly anti-larva mosquito drive. “One needs to mix 10 ml of plant juice in 400 ml water. You will observe the larva of Aedes mosquito that is at first stage will be killed within one hour. While larva develop to others stages will also be killed in less than five hours. These plants are easily available in Delhi,” he said.
“The North Corporation is already spreading the awareness among people to use the leaf to kill larva before they turns into mosquitoes. The use of mosquito repellents has problems of resistance and side-effects on human. Natural repellents can help avoid such problems,” a senior Corporation official said.
Ranbir Singh, Director (Horticulture) told The Pioneer that Agave Americana is available in our nurseries, and is being promoted as a useful weapon in the fight against mosquito-borne diseases.
While introducing the plant Agave Americana, Dr Pramod Verma, the District Health Officer of City zone said that preventing mosquito’s larva to develop into mosquitoes should always be the priority and the leaf plays very important role in this regard.
“The leaf extract of Agave americana has a larvicidal efficacy. The larvae will be dead within after putting the extracts in coolers and containers in which water is collected. It can be put in the desert coolers, plastic containers and water holding containers after cutting into pieces to check the menace. Active cooperation and people’s participation is needed to curtail the numbers,” he said.
Agave americana, is basically a native to Mexico that is why it is also called Maxican plant also and now-a-days the plant is available everywhere in abundant quantity.
Earlier, the North Corporation has already introduced the Gambusia fishes to control breeding in stagnant water. Also the concepts of dengue free coolers have been introduced. “According to this concept the water tanks will be covered to prevent the entry of mosquitoes into it for laying of eggs. There is thus no risk of disease transmission due to breeding in water coolers and no weekly cleaning of the water tank is required. Even if the breeding still takes place inside the cooler and eggs fall in the water tank, the mosquitoes can’t come out due to cover over the water tank,” he said.
Senior municipal officials said that the concept to promote eco-friendly way to bring down the cases of vector-borne diseases was developed by experts of health department after years of research and experiencing practical approach to deal with mosquitoes menace.