Laboratory evaluation of toxicity of 16 insect repellents in aerosol sprays to adult mosquitoes.

Sixteen commercial insect repellents (6 botanical and 10 synthetic organic products) in spray formulations were evaluated in the laboratory for adult knockdown (KD) and mortality of laboratory-reared female Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus, and Anopheles quadrimaculatus. All tested products produced significant posttreatment KD and 24 h mortality of all 3 mosquito species. In our study, the synthetic organic repellents induced faster KD and KD of higher magnitude in adult mosquitoes than the botanical product repellents except geraniol-based MosquitoSafe. All tested formulations except 2 botanical repellent products caused 100% 24 h mortality of Ae. aegypti and all but 1 caused 100% 24 h mortality of Ae. albolpictus and An. quadrimaculatus.