Aquatain Products Pty Ltd. of Victoria, Australia has begun worldwide marketing of its flagship mosquito control product, Aquatain AMF. The Caribbean distributor for this product is Avanzato Ricco Ltd. based in Kingston, Jamaica.
The company claims that Aquatain is not a chemical in that it is not designed, for instance, to disable the central nervous system of the aquatic stages of pest and disease-carrying mosquitoes like the typical insecticide. Rather, Aquatain is a physical acting product that reduces the surface tension of water thereby making it impossible for adult mosquitoes to rest on it and lay eggs. Hence adults that land on water treated with Aquatain will drown; so too the larvae and pupae that would have hatched from eggs laid prior to treatment since they would not be able to penetrate the water’s surface to breathe.
Company literature and test results obtained by Woodshed Environment describe Aquatain AMF as a natural product with the main ingredients being silicone, citronella and eucalyptus oils. This almost clear and slightly odourless liquid can also be added to drinking water to stop evaporation without any harm to humans, animals and the environment.
Tests on the safety of Aquatain to humans, animals and the environment have been done in the United States of America, Australia, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore and Sri Lanka, and recently at the Government Analytical Laboratory of the Republic of Uganda.
Most recently, in February of this year, efficacy tests were conducted in laboratories and at various water breeding sites in select districts of the Republic of Uganda leading to a 100% kill within the first forty-eight hours following application.
Field tests were concluded in December 2009 in Aluthkade, Sri Lanka with similarly impressive results. That study also showed that Aquatain retained its efficacy for up to a month after initial treatment.
The Aquatain AMF is being used successfully in many parts of the world including Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Mexico and on Necker Island, an exclusive resort owned by Richard Branson in the British Virgin Islands. It has been extensively tested otherwise than in Uganda and Sri Lanka.
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THING YOU DID NOT KNOW ABOUT MOSQUITOES.... It would take 1,200,000 mosquitoes, each sucking once, to completely drain the average human of blood. (Sources: discovermagazine.com / anannimos.blogspot.com) - Now you know.
Woodshed Environment Coalition 