Emerging Insect-Borne Diseases of Agricultural, Medical and Veterinary Importance

Current migrations, due to several causes, but mainly consequence of climate changes, are causing several problems in Southern Europe. Some migrations are evident and at‐ tract attention immediately; others are silent, but still important, like several ones involv‐ ing agriculture and livestock. In the future, a number of products employed in pest control may lose their efficacy. Pesticide resistance should be considered an increasing problem, and more environmental-friendly control approaches against arthropod pests are urgently needed. Two examples from the South of Italy clearly explain the kind of arising alerts and the complex network involving abiotic and biotic causes. The first case is the growing number of blue-tongue disease outbreaks, vectored by Culicoides sp. The second case is the alarm concerning the olive trees epidemic disease in Apulia, due to the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa. The development of new pest control methods is required in order to minimize negative effects of currently marketed synthetic pesticides. In this sce‐ nario, natural product research can afford solutions as part of an integrated pest control system. Preliminary results concerning the use of neem, Azadirachta indica, in control of insect vectors are discussed.