Abstract
The paper summarizes the acaricidal and insecticidal effects of a patented neem seed extract when diluted 1:10 with shampoo or 1:20, 1:30, 1:33, 1:40, respectively, 1:66 with tap water. It was shown that a broad range of pests and parasites, such as house dust mites, poultry mites, harvest mites, Ixodes and Rhipicephalus ticks, cat fleas (adults, larvae), bed bugs (all stages), head lice and mallophaga, cockroaches (genera Blatta, Blattella, Gomphadorhina), raptor bugs (Triatoma), and even food-attacking beetle (Tenebrio molitor) might be controlled with this extract, which is available as Tre-san® (against house dust mites) and MiteStop® (against mites, ticks, insects of any kind) to become water diluted or as Wash Away Louse® or Picksan LouseStop® being diluted in a shampoo. Tests on skin compatibility proved that there are no skin irritations during or after use. However, some target species are less sensible (beetles, Triatoma stages, fly maggots), while the specimens of the other species cited above were successfully killed even at low concentrations of the extract.
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Acknowledgment
We hereby gratefully acknowledge the support of the Center of Excellency of the College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We also thank Prof. Dr. Eberhard Schein (Free University of Berlin, Germany) for his support.
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Schmahl, G., Al-Rasheid, K.A.S., Abdel-Ghaffar, F. et al. The efficacy of neem seed extracts (Tre-san®, MiteStop®) on a broad spectrum of pests and parasites. Parasitol Res 107, 261–269 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-010-1915-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-010-1915-x