Hungary uses aerial mosquito control despite the 2020 EU ban

There will be aerial mosquito control in 274 settlements and 11 districts in Budapest despite the 2020 EU ban.

In most cases, spaying chemical substances from a car is the method to control mosquitos. Although, in 122 settlements and 6 Budapest districts, the widely used method will be complemented with aerial mosquito control. –writes hvg.hu.

In 104 settlements and four districts of Budapest, mosquito control will go, as usual, spraying the chemicals from a car, but in the third district of Budapest and Győr, mosquito control will be only by air.

There will also be aerial chemical control, but from 2020 onwards, this could not, in principle, be applied in the EU.

Bernadett Szél, an independent Member of Parliament, wrote on her public  Facebook page that a loophole in the law is used to do this. The EU regulation allows for issuing temporary national authorisations, for a period of six months in case of public health emergencies. National Center for Public Health stated that a new epidemic caused by mosquitos would be impossible to handle. The politician mentioned in her post that chemical extermination destroys bees and other pollinating insects, not only mosquitos.

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According to an article from 2019 on  greenpeace.org, The Hungarian Academy of Sciences issued a statement highlighting that the timing, measure and execution of predominantly deltamethrin-based chemical mosquito control is unsuitable.

The website writes that ”in 2018, the agents used in the chemical reduction were Coratrin, Aqua K-Othrin, and Mosquitox 1 ULV Forte mosquito repellents, one of the active ingredients of which is a synthetic compound called deltamethrin, which acts on the nervous system of insects. Research has previously shown that deltamethrin can damage the hormonal system and has been demonstrated in experiments in mice to contribute to the development of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).” A citation from another website mentioned in the greenpeace.org article states that

the argument that deltamethrin sprayed into the air cannot enter the human body is debatable.

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Source: hvg.hu, greenpeace.org