The Department of Science and Technology had developed Ovicidal-Larvicial Mosquito Trap, or OL Trap, which will be available in the market soon. According to DOST Ilocos Norte director Fehlander Madriaga, the agency had issued a license to Uni-Medica Phils to produce the OL mosquito traps. “The manager of Uni-Medica is from Laoag City and has signed a contract with a manufacturer in Valenzuela in Metro Manila. He can distribute the pellets in Ilocos Norte and even in the whole of Region 1,” Engr. Madriaga said. The cost of the pellets is P2 per sachet which can be utilized for a week. The OL trap set includes a plywood strip that resembles an ice cream bar stick, an usual black or dark-colored container or tumbler, and 4 sachets of pellets, this cost P50. A sachet of pellets should be mixed with 250ml of water. The stick must be soaked in the solution. It should be placed upright in the container with one end dipped in the solution in order that the stick will always absorb the liquid. The pellets with attractant will magnetize the Aedes aegypti mosquito to lay its eggs into the rough part of the solution-saturated strip. Then the solution will kill the eggs and larvae. The community may wipe away the eggs and larvae from the strip and use again the strip. This is the explanation provided by Engr Madriaga. DOST’s experiments revealed the effectiveness of the OL Trap solution with a 70 percent attraction rate and 100 percent mortality rate. The results of the experiments discovered that a female mosquito can lay as many as 400 eggs four times in its life, 80 percent of which will turn out to be female. Through the usefulness of OL Trap, the next generation of mosquitoes in an area will be lessened. Also, the deadly dengue virus that they carry will be eliminated.
Last June, the DOST distributed free OL Traps to 4,000 households in Laoag City, Batac City, Dingras and San Nicolas. These free OL Traps will be given until the end of November. [via pia.gov.ph]