Coconuts kill mosquitoes

New Internationalist, April, 2000 by Zoraida Portillo

Coconuts could help cure malaria, according to Peruvian microbiologist Palmira Ventosilla of the Cayetano Heredia University in Lima. The treatment for malaria is produced commercially in industrialized countries but its importation is too expensive for poor countries afflicted by the disease. For a long time Ventosilla searched for a simple method to develop naturally a necessary bacillus, known by its scientific name of Bti.

She finally found what she was looking for in coconuts. `A small quantity of Bti is introduced into the coconut through a hole that is then plugged with cotton and sealed with candle wax. The hard shell of the coconut protects the incubating bacillus, and the milk inside contains amino acids and carbohydrates necessary for its reproduction,' Ventosilla explains. After two or three days of fermentation, the coconuts are taken to the swamps where the mosquitoes live, the plugs are removed and a few of the coconuts are thrown into the stagnant pools of water. Experiments have demonstrated that this kills all the larvae and keeps working for 45 days.