Report of the tenth WHOPES working group meeting, WHO/HQ, Geneva, 11–14 December 2006

Overview

The tenth meeting of the WHOPES Working Group, an advisory group to the WHO Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES), was convened at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, from 11 to 14 December 2006. The objective of the meeting was to review the reports of testing and evaluation of the following four products: (i) spinosad 0.5% GR (granule) and 12% SC (suspension concentrate) of Dow AgroSciences, France, for mosquito larviciding; (ii) lambda-cyhalothrin 10% CS (slow-release capsule suspension) of Syngenta, Switzerland, for indoor residual spraying against malaria vectors; (iii) K-O TAB 1-2-3 (an insecticide treatment kit) of Bayer Environmental Science, France, for treatment of mosquito nets for malaria prevention and control; and (iv) Interceptor, alpha-cypermethrin long-lasting (coated) insecticidal mosquito net of BASF, Germany, for malaria prevention and control.

The meeting was attended by 11 scientists (see Annex 1: List of participants). Dr Mir S. Mulla was appointed as Chairman and Dr Purushothaman Jambulingam as Rapporteur. The meeting was convened in plenary and group sessions, in which the reports of the WHOPES supervised trials and relevant published literature and unpublished reports were reviewed and discussed (see Annex 2: References). Recommendations on the use of the above- mentioned products were made.

The meeting also reviewed the results of laboratory studies on the deltamethrin long-lasting (coated) insecticidal mosquito nets of Netto Group (Thailand), Hiking Group Shandongtex Genfont (China) and Tianjin Yorkool (China), as part of the requirements for extension of WHO specifications for deltamethrin long-lasting (coated) insecticidal mosquito net (LN), as well as the reports of the WHOPES multi-centre study to develop simple and reliable method to determine the bioefficacy of pyrethroid-treated nettings, and made recommendations for further action.