Why aircraft disinsection

Continuing Concerns. Challenges for the Future. What can be Achieved Together. Research Opportunities. Author contributions. Conflict of interest. Author statements. Aircraft disinsection: what is the usefulness as a public health measure? College of Business. To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: andrea. Oxford Academic. Google Scholar. Richard C Russell. Revision requested:. Revision received:.

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Advance article alerts. New issue alert. Receive exclusive offers and updates from Oxford Academic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC , there is no evidence to show that using insecticide to kill mosquitoes inside aircraft cabins is effective in preventing introduction and spread of mosquito-borne diseases.

Therefore, the CDC does not recommend using insecticide to kill insects inside commercial aircraft to prevent the spread of Zika. CDC's Technical Statement on the Role of Disinsection of Airplanes or Ships states that an infected person is the most common source for imported mosquito-borne viruses.

In , EPA issued guidance for pesticide registrants stating that the Agency will not register disinsection products for use in aircraft cabins because available data do not demonstrate that the benefits of such use outweigh the potential associated risks and may therefore pose a risk of unreasonable adverse effects to human health and the environment.

Products that were registered at the time the guidance was issued had to amend their labels to comply with the requirements stated in the guidance or remove uses that would require new data based on that guidance, such as use in aircraft cabins. Currently, there are no EPA-registered disinsection products for use in aircraft cabins. There are products registered to treat the cargo areas of aircraft.

Any use of a pesticide product must be done strictly according to the label directions and precautions. This means that aircraft cabins cannot be treated while the plane is in the United States including its airspace. While there are no EPA-registered products for aircraft cabin disinsection, in , EPA issued a special exemption from pesticide registration requirements to the Department of Defense to allow treatment of military aircraft to meet host nation requirements.

EPA placed several restrictions on this exemption, including the following requirements to protect crew and passengers:. Skip to main content. Related Topics: Mosquito Control. Contact Us.