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Mosquitoes act as a vector of many life threatening diseases like malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, chikungunya fever, filariasis, encephalitis etc., in almost all tropical and subtropical countries and cause morbidity associated with high mortality. To prevent the increased frequency of mosquito borne diseases and to increase the quality of public health, mosquito control is essential. According to World Health Organization (WHO) 1981, the most effective strategy for the reduction of mosquito borne diseases is to destroy the vectors or intermediate hosts in the immature condition because of their restricted habitat and minimum dispersal. The most effective method to control mosquito larvae is the application of chemical insecticides, such as Organophosphates, Organchlorides etc. The application of chemical larvicides are mostly found to be effective against immature forms of mosquito vectors; but the over and injudicious application of the chemical insecticide produce harmful effect on human health and non- target populations as they are non biodegradable in nature. Due to their repeated application and having higher rate of biological magnification through ecosystem, the insecticide resistant varieties of vectors are selected in nature. So it is an urgent need to develop new insecticides which are more environmentally safe and also biodegradable and target specific in nature. In view of this, some biodegradable organic products, synthetic chemicals and plant derived secondary metabolites are now recommended in the alternative vector control programme.
Salicylic acid (SA)is a monohydroxybenzoic acid, a type of phenolic acid and a beta hydroxy acid which shows bacteriostatic, fungicidal and keratolytic actions (Dhaval et al., 2013; Srinivasa Babu et al., 2012). It is soluble in water, biodegradable in nature having low potential of bioaccumulation (Kilpi et al., 1980). This organic acid is a phytohormone and helps in plant growth and development (Thomas et al., 2008). SA has been recognized as a regulatory signal mediating plant response to abiotic stresses such as drought (Munne´- Bosch and Pen uelas., 2003), chilling (Kang and Saltveit, 2002), heavy metal tolerance (Freeman et al., 2005), heat (Larkindale et al., 2005), and osmotic stress (Borsani et al., 2001). Salicylic acid and its derivatives are used in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry also (Thomas et al., 2008).
The biocidal activity of Salicylic acid (SA) and its derivatives were earlier documented in the literature. Fumigant...