Indian berries to fight dengue fever

This is not exactly "Food as Medicine", the original title of this blog. However, this possible food (Indian berries) could possibly be of use to the medical circles. Dengue fever is hitting many countries very hard and is considered to be of epidemic in some countries. Here is a poster for an anti-Dengue fever campaign:

This photo of an anti-Dengue fever campaign is property of Stan Wiechers

You see a photo of a mosquito, the medium for the spread of dengue fever, in the photo. Well, if what Indian scientist found is true, we now have a natural source of another weapon against this pesky pest. The Indian scientists found that extracts from berries of a weed, Solanum villosum, was effective as a natural insecticide against Stegomyia aegypti, the mosquito which is the vector for spreading of the deadly dengue fever.

The Indian scientists also said that disease-spreading mosquitoes are increasingly resistant to synthetic insecticides, so having a natural alternative is important. However, I was told that this cannot be true as mosquitoes have too short a life cycle to develop that resistance to insecticides. Who exactly is correct I am not sure yet, but a natural insecticide is a definite welcome to our stock of insecticides against disease-spreading mosquitoes which are a nuisance enough even without their life-threatening ability to spread deadly diseases.

Source:
Mosquito larvicidal activities of Solanum villosum berry extract against the dengue vector Stegomyia aegypti.
by Nandita Chowdhury, Anupam Ghosh and Goutam Chandra.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/8/10/abstract