Catnip Lotion Matches Deet in Uganda Mosquito Trial
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- Cardiff University researchers found a catnip-oil lotion was "just as effective as Deet" at repelling mosquitoes in field trials in eastern Uganda, with a 6% concentration matching the chemical repellent and a 2% version "marginally less effective."
- Dr Simon Scofield told the Society for Experimental Biology conference in Florence that Deet is "out of the price bracket" for rural Ugandan subsistence farmers, framing the catnip lotion as a locally producible, affordable alternative.
- The trial compared 2% and 6% catnip lotions against a 15% Deet cream and placebo creams, counting mosquito landings on volunteers' legs over an evening — though UK travellers are advised to use repellents of at least 50% Deet for malaria-endemic regions.
- The lotion can be made by a local community enterprise and has so far been distributed free with grant funding; the next phase aims to scale production and sell it to create a self-sustaining income stream for workers.
- Malaria still infects about 282 million people a year and killed 610,000 in 2024, mostly young children in African countries, while resistance to frontline insecticides and treatments is rising.
- Swai Kyeba of Tanzania's Ifakara Health Institute, who was not involved in the research, cautioned that topical repellents face "low compliance" because they require regular reapplication and urged more study on households' current repellent habits before scaling up.
Why it matters: Malaria still kills 610,000 people a year, most of them African children, and Deet's cost puts commercial repellents out of reach for the subsistence farmers most at risk. A repellent that matches Deet and can be made by a community enterprise offers a cheaper tool against a disease where insecticide and drug resistance are both growing.
