Brief Definition of Acaricides

Acaricides are chemicals used to kill ticks and mites. Ticks belong to an order of the arthropods called Acarina, which also contains the mites; and chemicals used against the latter my be referred as Scabicidal agents or popular with the name of miticides in the USA. Some ticks transmit other diseases such as Lyme disease, typhus, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but they may themselves cause local irritation, for instance in scabies caused by itch-mites Sarcoptes scabiei, and sometimes serious skin lesions and more general toxic manifestations, scabicidal drugs are used to kill the mites that cause scabies, in which the female mite tunnels into the top surface of the skin in order to lay eggs, causing severe irritation as she does so.

Newly hatched mites, which also cause irritation with their secretions, then pass easily from person to person by direct contact; so every member of an infected household should be treated, and clothing and bedding should also be disinfected. Treatment is usually with local applications of a cream to kill the mites, but some agents can be irritant or have toxic manifestations; further resistance to many of these agents has developed in many ticks and mites. Acaricides that can, or have been used, include the halogenated hydrocarbons such as dieldrin and lindane, organophophorus pyrethroids such as permethrin and phenotrin, and a number of other substances, including benzyl benzoate, crotamiton and monosulfiram. Some of these agents are also used as pediculicidal treatments against lice.

Source: Concise Dictionary of Pharmacological Agents (Ian K.M. Morton)