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In Peninsular Malaysia, barn owls (Tyto javanica javanica) have been utilized as biological control of rats since the 1960s. In this study, the impact of introduced barn owls on rat populations in an oil palm plantation in Sabah, Malaysia, were studied. There were three treatment areas in this study: T1 (barn owl area) was an oil palm plot where no rodenticides were applied and rat control relied solely on predation of the introduced barn owls, T2 was an oil palm plot where one fixed baiting campaign was carried out per year, and T3 was an oil palm plot where two fixed baiting campaigns were carried out per year. Rat abundance and fresh fruit bunch (FFB) damage were assessed monthly throughout the four-year study period. The dominant species at all treatment areas was the House rat, Rattus rattus diardii. Both rat abundance and FFB damage were higher in the first year of study at all three treatment areas. FFB damage was lowest at T3 compared to the other two treatment areas throughout the entire study period, probably due to the intensive baiting carried out at T3. FFB damage at T1 was comparable to FFB damage at T2 (with the exception of the first year of study). Additionally, FFB damage at T1 after the first year was frequently below the 5% FFB damage threshold level. The results of this study indicate that introduced barn owl control of rat pests was sufficient for at least three years and perhaps more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Typical response to dengue fever cases is the fogging activity to target the adult mosquito population. This process must be performed at a time period coinciding with the mosquito life cycle. However, there is no evidence to confirm the efficacy of fogging in preventing mosquito bites, and this study would examine the connection between the incidence of fogging in Sandakan and the number of dengue cases recorded. Materials and Methods: Dengue surveillance data were derived from the e-Dengue database system (version 2.0). This analysis looked at the fogging level of every locality in 15 zones and at the incidences of dengue in Sandakan. We collected the data from Sandakan Health District Office. The operation data has been combined with each location. The level of fogging was dependent on the amount of region affected and the year, which was then converted to monthly results. Data was obtained using a regression analysis, and analyzed. Results: Results indicate that the frequency of fogging increases with dengue cases. A statistical result shows that more fogging activities resulted in greater numbers of dengue cases. A correlation coefficient of 0.75 suggests the frequency of fogging and the incidence of dengue fever are positively correlated. Conclusion: Overall, there is a linear pattern of positive data association. This result shows that the higher the fogging frequency, the higher the incidence of dengue fever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]