TNAVC, January 2000
Suppl
Compend Contin Educ Pract Vet
Vol. 22, No. 4(A), 2000
T
he development and marketing of highly effective, residualinsecticides/insect growth regulators during the past fewyears has dramatically changed the way pet owners treattheir pets for fleas. The increased reliance on single-compound, on-animal, or oral application systems to control fleas has been accom-panied by a corresponding decrease in the treatment of premises andan indifferent attitude toward flea biology and epidemiology.Although these compounds are remarkably effective, there is a con-cern that an overreliance on any single compound to control insectsmay lead to the development of insecticide resistance.
Resistance
to insecticides was defined by the World HealthOrganization (WHO) as the development of an ability in a strain of some organism to tolerate doses of a toxicant that would provelethal to a majority of individuals in a normal population of thesame species.
1
Resistance has a genetic basis and is the result of achange in the genetic composition of a population as a direct resultof the selective effects of a toxicant.
History of Insecticide Resistance
In 1951
Pulex irritans
was suggested as becoming resistant toDDT after sprays were applied to control malarial mosquitoes.
2
Soon thereafter, many locations, mainly in the tropics, reportedcontrol failures. Laboratory bioassays confirmed that insecticideselection pressure had forced genetic evolution of flea populationswith resistance as the outcome.
2
By 1983, eight species of fleas,including the fleas of public health importance
Ctenocephalides felis
,
P. irritans
, and
Xenopsylla cheopis
, had demonstrated resistance tomany of the insecticides used in flea control.
3
In addition, labora-tory selection studies have produced resistance ratios (the ratio of lethal doses of a resistant strain to lethal doses of a susceptiblestrain) of 12 and 108 over unselected controls against malathion intwo separate experiments.
4,5
A field-collected strain of cat fleasfrom Florida had resistance ratios of 26 and 28 over a laboratorystrain from California for malathion and bendiocarb, respectively.
6,7
Cat fleas are thought to be resistant to more chemical families thanany other flea.
8
Determining the Cause of Product Failures
Because it is understood that development of resistance in catflea populations is always a possibility, veterinarians should not bequick to blame resistance for all perceived control failures. Veteri-narians must always be aware that several factors other than resist-ance may be involved when treatment is perceived to have failed.
In clinical practice it may be difficult or impossible to deter-mine if a particular product failed because of resistance.
Perceivedfailure in practice situations could be from lack of owner compliance,environmental burden of the pest, presence of untreated hosts,bathing of the treated pet, vomiting of oral medications, or actualresistance. It can be difficult to determine the reason for perceivedproduct failure without considerable investigation. Even in the labo-ratory a number of factors can affect the results of a laboratory bioas-say, such as rearing conditions, immobilization method, age of organ-ism, shipping stresses, treated substrate, temperature, or humidity.
Terminology for Describing Product Failures
Another problem practitioners encounter is a misunderstandingof terms used to describe failures. One such term is reduced suscep-tibility. The reasons for reduced susceptibility may vary dependingupon whether one is referring to a laboratory bioassay, an on-animalefficacy trial, or a field event. This term simply refers to a popula-tion of organisms that has a higher survival rate than expected whenexposed to a particular compound, regardless of the cause.
Tolerance
refers to the response by a population of organisms toa toxicant relative to other species. It is the innate genetic predispo-sition of a population. Examples of tolerance include ticks beingmore tolerant of imidacloprid than fleas are, and
Trichuris vulpis
beingmore tolerant of pyrantel pamoate than is
Ancylostoma caninum
.These are conditions that exist irrespective of selection pressure.
Insecticide resistance
is the ability of an insect population to sur-vive doses and concentrations of an insecticide that previously werelethal to that population. Insecticide resistance is a genetic change ina population caused by the elimination of the susceptible individuals,leaving only the resistant individuals to breed. Resistance is a form of
Susceptibility of Fleasto Control Agents:Development ofa Monitoring System
Michael W. Dryden, DVM, PhD
Associate Professor of Veterinary Parasitology Department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology College of Veterinary MedicineKansas State University Manhattan, KS, USA
Alberto B. Broce, PhD
Professor of Entomology Department of Entomology Kansas State University Manhattan, KS, USA
Leave a Comment