ABSTRACT
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDPC, 2014), vector-borne diseases are ‘infections transmitted by the bite of infected arthropod species, such as mosquitoes, ticks, triatomine bugs, sandflies, and blackflies’. Vector-borne diseases cause significant morbidity and mortality, especially in developing countries. They have accounted for large numbers of fatalities in humankind for a long period. In fact, up until the early twentieth century, vector-borne diseases accounted for more deaths in humans than all other causes combined (Kalluri et al., 2007). They were also responsible for the underdevelopment or nondevelopment of large areas of the tropics, especially in Africa. Vector-borne diseases account for seven of ten neglected infectious diseases that disproportionately affect poor and marginalized populations (Eisen and Eisen, 2011), two of the main ones being malaria and dengue fever. Malaria cases are estimated at around 250 million per year, with approximately 1 million deaths; dengue fever affects around 50 million people annually.
