Introduction<br>Mosquitoes are the major vector for the transmission of<br>malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, filariasis, schistosomiasis, and Japanese encephalitis (James 1992; Gubler 1998).<br>Mosquitoes also cause allergic responses that include local<br>skin and systemic reactions such as angioedema in humans<br>(Peng et al. 1999). The yellow fever mosquitoes, Aedes<br>aegypti, is responsible for dengue fever in India where the<br>number of dengue fever cases has increased significantly in<br>recent years. Dengue viruses occur as four antigenically<br>related but distinct serotypes, which cause a broad range of<br>disease, including clinically asymptomatic forms, classic<br>dengue fever, and the more severe forms such as dengue<br>hemorrhagic fever–dengue shock syndrome (Fundacaõ<br>Nacional de Saú de 2002). Dengue is present in more than<br>100 countries and threatens the health of approximately 2.5<br>billion people. Worldwide, around 80 million people are<br>infected annually at an attack rate of 4% (Monath 1994).<br>Culex quinquefasciatus, a vector of lymphatic filariasis, is a<br>widely distributed tropical diseases with around 120 million<br>people infected worldwide and 44 million people having<br>common chronic manifestation (Bernhard et al. 2003).<br>Control of the mosquito larvae is frequently dependent<br>on continued applications of organophosphates and insect<br>growth regulators (Yang et al. 2002). An obvious method<br>for the control of mosquito-borne diseases is the use of<br>insecticides, and many synthetic agents have been developed and employed in the field with considerable success.<br>However, one major drawback with the use of chemical<br>insecticides is that they are non-selective and could be<br>harmful to other organisms in the environment. It has also<br>provoked undesirable effects, including toxicity to nontarget organisms, and fostered environmental and human<br>health concerns (Lee et al. 2001). The toxicity problem,<br>together with the growing incidence of insect resistance,<br>has called attention to the need for novel insecticides<br>(Macedo et al. 1997) and for more detailed studies of<br>naturally occurring insecticides (Ansari et al. 2000). These
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