Natural repellents from
plant extracts have demonstrated good efficacy against
bites of some insect species. The present study evaluated the repellent effect of
essential oils extracted from 8 plants species against
bites of Lutzomyia migonei, the Leishmania vector. The
essential oils were extracted by
steam destillation in Clevenger chamber, from the following plants: Hyptis suaveolens, Pimenta racemosa, Piper marginatum, Monticalia imbricatifolia, Pseudognaphalium caeruleocanum, Espeletia shultzii, Plecthranthus amboinicus and Cinnamomun zeylanicum. Repellency tests were performed under laboratory conditions by the human hand method in cage assays, using female colonies of L. migonei. The more effective
oils were tested at variable concentrations on different volunteers. The protection percentage and time were calculated. The results showed what
oils of P. caeruleocanum and C. zeylanicum were the most effective. Although P. amboinicus oil also had repellent effect showed an
irritant effect. The
oils P. marginatum, H. suaveolens and P. racemosa showed no repellent effect, while the rest of oil extracts showed significant repellency in variable degrees. P. caeruleocanum and C. zeylanicum
oils provided the 95% protection against
bites of L. migonei for 3 h. The P. caeruleocanum oil showed the greatest protection time, with a mean over 4h and 3h at concentrations of 50% and 10% respectively. The results suggest that the P. caeruleocanum oil could represent a potential natural repellent against Leishmania vectors.