Attraction of Triatomine Bug Vectors of Chagas's Disease to Betalights

Abstract

APART from the improvement of housing standards as circumstances permit, the control of Chagas's disease throughout its range in South and Central America depends on control of the vectors (domestic triatomine bugs) by periodic indoor application of residual insecticide, usually HCH. Bug infestation in the low standard dwellings which are characteristic of urban and rural foci of the disease is usually discovered by daytime search for bugs in the cracks and crevices of walls and other indoor surfaces where the insects hide during the day. Pyrethrum powder is often blown into such fissures to irritate the bugs and cause them to emerge¹, and some workers also sample by attaching perforated boxes containing crumpled paper to walls, when the chance lodgment of bugs in the boxes may indicate infestation². The economic management of vector control requires more reliable and less time-consuming sampling methods³ and there is also a need for better quantitative data on bug densities in relation to clinical and epidemiological aspects of the disease.