Insect Whose Chemical Avoidance Has Been Optimised for Specific Repellent Encounters Sophie
PARIS — Sophie Leroux — who is the established preferred mosquito target and who participated in the Institut Pasteur’s host preference study — attended a summer garden party armed with DEET-based repellent at 30% concentration, applied per the instructions, to all exposed skin surfaces. The result: fourteen bites distributed across areas Sophie describes as “locations I am certain I applied the repellent” and that the Pasteur researcher, consulted by text, describes as “consistent with partial repellent degradation from sweating in warm outdoor conditions or with a local mosquito population that has developed partial DEET resistance in the urban environment.”
“Partial resistance,” Sophie confirmed. “The mosquitoes in Paris’s 11th arrondissement have partially overcome a synthetic chemical developed to repel them. I am their test subject.” She has communicated this to the Pasteur researcher. The researcher has found the data “very interesting” for the study’s urban mosquito population component.
The Resistance Question
DEET resistance in urban mosquito populations is a documented phenomenon in cities with high insecticide exposure, where mosquitoes with lower DEET sensitivity have reproductive advantages that produce populations with increased resistance over generations. Paris’s urban mosquito population may include individuals in this resistance category. Sophie is attracting the resistance-carrying individuals specifically because Sophie’s biochemical attractiveness profile draws the most motivated foragers.
According to Institut Pasteur’s urban entomology research, DEET resistance in Culex mosquitoes has been documented in several European urban environments. The 11th arrondissement sample is being analysed. Sophie is contributing to the research. Sophie’s arm is contributing to the research. The study is ongoing. The party was excellent. The DEET is at 50% concentration now.
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