Lesson plan
Temefos
Temefos or temephos (trade name Abate) is an organophosphate larvicide used to treat water infested with disease-carrying insects (including mosquitoes, midges, and black fly larvae) and crustaceans (copepods). As with other organophosphates, temephos affects the central nervous system through inhibition of cholinesterase. In larvae, this results in death before reaching the adult stage. In the developing world where the vector-borne disease dengue fever is endemic, temephos is widely used and applied by both private and public pest control in areas of standing water where the Aedes aegypti mosquito breeds, in order to reduce the population of this disease-carrying insect. Temephos is also used in the Guinea Worm Eradication Program to kill the copepods that carry guinea worm larvae. Resistance to temephos by A. aegypti has been seen in Brazil. The Brazilian Aedes aegypti resistance monitoring program detected temephos resistance in A. aegypti populations from several localities in the country in 1999 (Funasa 2000, Lima et al. 2003). In 1999, mosquitoes from the city of Rio de Janeiro were observed to be resistant to temephos.
Article summary
Temefos or temephos (trade name Abate) is an organophosphate larvicide used to treat water infested with disease-carrying insects (including mosquitoes, midges, and black fly larvae) and crustaceans (copepods). As with other organophosphates, temephos affects the central nervous system through inhibition of cholinesterase. In larvae, this results in death before reaching the adult stage. In the developing world where the vector-borne disease dengue fever is endemic, temephos is widely used and applied by both private and public pest control in areas of standing water where the Aedes aegypti mosquito breeds, in order to reduce the population of this disease-carrying insect. Temephos is also used in the Guinea Worm Eradication Program to kill the copepods that carry guinea worm larvae. Resistance to temephos by A. aegypti has been seen in Brazil. The Brazilian Aedes aegypti resistance monitoring program detected temephos resistance in A. aegypti populations from several localities in the country in 1999 (Funasa 2000, Lima et al. 2003). In 1999, mosquitoes from the city of Rio de Janeiro were observed to be resistant to temephos.
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
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Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.