Novel Solution for Tackling Pest Menace in Hostels
Innovative way to tackle pest menance
Hyderabad: Tejas Anto Kannampuzha, a student of IMSc Sciences, Physics stream of 2022 batch, at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) invented a novel & practical, but at the same time a simple but effective intervention to deal with a perennial pest problem of acid fly attacks in the student hostels of the University of Hyderabad. Along with Prof BR Shamanna of the School of Medical Sciences, he collaborated to address this problem using a simple technology of the effect of reduced ultraviolet A radiation from the light source used in the hostel rooms and its effect on acid fly attacks.
Tejas found that the Acid flies (Paederus spp.) which are rove beetles induce acidic burns on skin during night contact called Paederus dermatitis and are considered a global pest. He conducted a research study among 209 hostel residents affected by an outbreak of Paederus dermatitis in the University of Hyderabad hostel to study the effect of light on attacks by this pest. His research revealed that LED lights emit significantly less UV-A radiation than CFLs or incandescent lights and have a reduced rate of these acid fly attacks in the rooms that have this source compared to the other light sources like CFL or incandescent lamps.
The consequence of this research is far reaching in the university campus as just by altering the light source in the rooms by switching to LED lights it can significantly reduce this perennial but irritating pest problem.
Lauding the research, the Vice Chancellor of the university Prof BJ Rao, complimented the team for the simple and practically relevant work. He further urged them to undertake the logical sequel to the work to demonstrate the fly attraction coefficient against various forms of light that varies in UV content and light intensity type of parameters. He wished to see that it culminates in the “direct fly-light interaction” study. This study was published in a very prestigious journal the Indian Journal of Entomology and the pdf version of the article is available on the link:
https://indianentomology.org/index.php/ije/article/view/2572/1680.
