Abstract:

Mosquitos are the vectors of severe and well known illness such as Malaria, Dengue fever and Chikungunya fever, thus their limitation ism of major interest globally. This study investigated the topical repellent activity of natural products grown in Tanzania against mosquitoes in laboratory field where these extracts were diluted into different concentrations and applied topically on arm of a volunteer to test their effect against mosquitos. The natural products Orange, Lemon and Grapefruit peels was extracted in the laboratory by using ethanol as diluted and used to test for these repellent activities. lemon and Grapefruit peel extracts show repellent activity against mosquitos at 50% concentrations both and showed a protection time of 243 minutes and 63 minutes respectively, at concentrations less than 50% there were no activity for all the fruits and thus the lowest concentration. Orange peel extract was also tested for repellent activity but did not show protection at any concentration and thus should not be regarded as topical mosquito repellent. The extract application on arm was safe without any skin reaction for a volunteer and thus lemon and grapefruit peels extract is safe to be used topically as mosquito repellents.