THE BIG ITCH

FAR NORTH’S STING

DANIEL BATEMAN daniel.bateman@news.com.au AN insect repellent developed in Cairns is becoming so ubiquitous overseas, you can now find it at a pharmacy in Greenland.

Bushman Repellents is continuing its global domination after being selected as the official repellent of choice by the Australian Olympic team at the Rio de Janeiro Games two years ago.

The homegrown product was developed in 1990 by industrial chemist Tom Bethurem, who was trying to find a durable repellent that was effective in the tropics.

Mr Bethurem, who still lives in Cairns, used himself as a human guinea pig, venturing into the mangroves to test whether his formulation was effective against bloodsucking insects.

“When Tom developed the product, he was of the opinion that if he could develop a formulation that was strong enough to repel sandflies, then it’s going to do everything really well,” Bushman’s managing director Andrew Raper said.

“And then he developed the formulation, as he calls it, his ‘secret herbs and spices’, that make the product work so well and last so long.”

The repellent is now manufactured in Melbourne, and has expanded to a range of spray and roll-on products, with differing concentrations of DEET (Diethyl-meta-toluamide). COMMENT

Channel 10’s bumbling outback character Russell Coight was filmed using a new pumpversion of Bushman’s during the latest season of his

Mr Raper said the company’s products were gaining a lot of attention on the international market to the point it was now available in countries most people would not associate with having mosquito problems. “A lot of the countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Russia, Canada have got very, very wet winters,” he said.

“So there’s a huge amount of groundwater and they’ve actually got pretty hot summers.

“The summers are pretty short and intense, so you can have places that have -40C in winter and they’re almost plus 40C in summer.

“The mosquito problem – they can block out the sun, almost.

“So Bushman’s is finding a market in those places where you have a very intense mosquito season.

“Greenland happened about 12 months ago – I don’t think there’s anywhere further from Australia that we could go.”

He said the company was keen to keep growing in its home country and do its part in public health protection.

“There’s a lot of increases in mosquito-borne diseases, like chikungunya, ross river fever, west nile (virus), malaria, japanese encephalitis,” he said.

“There’s a flesh-eating virus (Daintree ulcer) that’s causing a lot of concern down in Victoria.

“We’ve just got to make sure we’re making the very best product we can.”