Topical assays involve depositing a droplet of an active ingredient (AI) directly onto the dorsal side of the thorax of adult mosquitoes.
This application mode grants accurate exposure and measures insecticide intrinsic efficacy in the absence of potential confounding effects resulting from insect behaviour such as avoidance and grooming or cuticular barriers to uptake.
This test can be used as a rapid first step to test efficacy of novel compounds to determine their intrinsic insecticidal activity, especially when screening a large number of compounds and/or when only small quantities of AIs are available.
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