To avoid malaria, sleep next to a chicken
A new research in Ethiopia found that mosquitoes are repelled by the smell of chickens.
Scientists found that sleeping with a chicken next to the bed may be a good way to avoid malaria.
Testing the blood in mosquitoes that had recently fed, researchers from Sweden and Ethiopia, found just one out of nearly 1,200 had bitten a chicken with people and cattle seeming to bear the brunt of the insects’ attentions.
Malaria is spread mainly by mosquitoes.
One of the researchers, Professor Rickard Ignell, of Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, said: ‘We were surprised to find that malaria mosquitoes are repelled by the odours emitted by chickens. This study shows for the first time that malaria mosquitoes actively avoid feeding on certain animal species, and that this behaviour is regulated through odour cues.’
The researchers, including academics from Addis Ababa University, took blood samples from mosquitoes that had just fed indoors and outdoors.
63% of mosquitoes were found to have sucked the blood of cattle. 20% sucked human blood with 5% feeding on goats and 2.6% on sheep.
The researchers found just one mosquito with chicken blood.
The researchers identified four ‘chicken-specific compounds’-isobutyl butyrate, naphthalene, hexadecane and trans-limonene – found in their feathers that appeared to have a repellent effect.
In future, you may not have to sleep next to a chicken to avoid malaria but the new mosquito repellents containing the four chicken-specific compounds as mentioned above may be commercially available to keep the mosquitoes away.
