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Abstract

Entomological surveillance was carried out in randomly selected urban and rural areas of Alappuzha district to find out the diversity of breeding habitats, larval indices, and preferred breeding habitats of Aedes mosquitoes. All the three larval indices such as House index (HI), Container index (CI) and Breteau index (BI) were significantly high in post monsoon than in pre monsoon both in urban and rural areas of Alappuzha district. In urban area, the most preferred breeding sources of Aedes mosquitoes were used tires (4.84) followed by plastic (1.24). A similar observation was found in rural area, in which the breeding preference ratio was more in tires (8.79) followed by plastic (1.58). In the present study, the factors favoring the breeding of vector mosquitoes especially Aedes species, reasons for the prevalence of this mosquito in the premises and most appropriate vector control strategy are discussed in detail.