2011

Azima Laili Hanifah, Siti Hazar Awang, Ho Tze Ming, Suhaili Zainal Abidin and Maizatul Hashima Omar (2011). Acaricidal activity of Cymbopogon citratus and Azadirachta indica against house dust mites. Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine 1(5): 365-369

Objective: To examine the acaricidal effects of the essential oil of Cymbopogon citratus leaf extract (lemongrass) and ethanolic Azadirachta indica leaf extrac (neem) against housedust mites Dermatophagoides farinae (D. farinae) and Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus (D. pteronyssinus) Methods: Twenty-five adults mites were placed onto treated filter paper that is soaked with plant extract and been tested at different concentrations (50.00%, 25.00%, 12.50%, 6.25% and 3.13%) and exposure times (24hrs, 48hrs, 72hrs and 96 hrs). All treatments were replicated 7 times, and the experiment repeated once. The topical and contact activities of the two herbs were investigated. Result: Mortalities from lemongrass extract were higher than neem for both topical and contact activities. At 50 % concentration, both 24 hrs topical and contact exposures to lemongrass resulted in more than 91% mortalities for both species of mites. At the same concentration and exposure time, neem resulted in topical mortalities of 40.3% and 15.7% against D. pteronyssinus and D. farinae respectively; contact mortalities were 8.0% and 8.9% against the 2 mites, respectively. There was no difference in topical mortalities of D. pteronyssinus from exposure to concentrations of lemongrass and neem up to 12.50%; Conclusions: Generally, topical mortalities of D. farinae due to lemongrass are higher than that due to neem. Contact mortalities of lemongrass are always higher that neem against both species of mites.