Efficacy of boric acid as an attractive toxic sugar bait on laboratory reared Aedes aegypti Linnaeus (Diptera: Culicidae)

Abstract

The suppression of mosquito population is the basic public health aspect to mitigate some deadly diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and zika. Attractive toxic sugar baits are being successfully used to combat the mosquito vectors. In this preliminary study, effects of four different concentrations (0.5%, 0.75%, 1% and 2%) of boric acid were evaluated on the mortality, age and sex of Aedes aegypti in laboratory condition and among those 1% was found to be optimum. The lethal concentration (LC50) of boric acid were determined which is significantly different between male and female, ranged from 0.54 to 20.92, decreasing from 48 h to 72 h. Newly emerged adults were found to be most susceptible compared to 2 weeks and 1 week-old adults (P < 0.05). However, further studies should be focused on increasing the attractiveness of this bait, on the sublethal effect of boric acid and also on the effect on non-target organisms.