Critical analysis of mosquito repellents formulation in the Brazilian market

Abstract

Mosquitoes are responsible of a wide variety of infectious agents to humans. Malaria, dengue, yellow fever and other diseases transmitted by mosquito bites affect millions of people worldwide causing thousands of deaths each year, causing a major impact on the health services. National programmes to fight vector-born diseases are based on controlling the mosquito population with the use of insecticides in an attempt to interrupt the cycle of these diseases. Unfortunately, insecticide-resistant mosquitoes have already existed in many areas of the world. In Brazil, due to the difficulties in controlling mosquitoes, potential opportunities for intervention arise through innovations that can contribute to minimizing the current problem. We can highlight the use of mosquito repellents as an opportunity. The main aim of this work was to analyze and compare commonly commercialized repellent products in Brazil, designed to repel mosquitos, describing their composition according to ideal parameters for these products reported in scientific literature and also Brazilian legislation.It was a bibliographical review which was carried out using Scielo, Google Scholar and PubMed platforms to look for studies in national and international scientific literature. In addition, Brazilian legislation on the subject was used. The following keywords were used: mosquito, repellents, raw materials, and cosmetics. These keywords were searched for in Portuguese, Spanish and English. Despite the importance of repellents for public health, there is little variety of actives ingredients and formulations. The most important actives ingredients to repeal mosquitos are DEET, Icaridina and IR3535. And the formulations in Brazilian market are lotion, liquid and gel. Even though only a small fraction of the Brazilian population buys repellent products, commercial brands should invest in this sector with effective, safe, not harm the environment and have a good residual products.