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Map of Tsetse infested Areas in Africa |
| Image by: IAEA |
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
ADDIS ABABA, 15 November (IRIN) - Africa is in danger of losing the war against deadly sleeping sickness-carrying tsetse flies, a UN expert warned, adding that total eradication by sterilising male flies using radioactive rays was the only viable option.
Ali Boussaha, head of the African division at the UN International Atomic Energy Agency told IRIN on Monday that attempts to control the spread of the tsetse-transmitted trypanosomosis had not worked in Africa, but the new Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) could be a success.
"When the SIT programme is well applied it leads to total eradication," he told IRIN. "This is the only was you can eradicate the tsetse fly.
"Unfortunately, in spite of important investments made by African countries and their development partners in control, none of these programmes have proven to be sustainable as they were not implemented according to the area-wide concept - leaving farmers with the only option of continued administration of trypanocidal drugs," he added.
Saying a pan-African SIT programme would cost billions of dollars and take several generations before it was effective, he insisted it was viable.
Tsetse flies cause immense damage in Africa. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), some US $4.5 billion is lost in production each year. FAO estimates three million cattle die from trypanosomosis, while 50 million are at risk.
Around one third of the continent’s landmass is infested with tsetse flies 10 million sq km and much of it fertile farming land. In 2001, the African Union (AU) set up the Pan-African Tsetse and Trypanosomosis Eradication Campaign to coordinate and mobilise African governments.
Experts at an international conference hosted by the AU in Addis Ababa also warned of the re-emergence of the disease that affects 500,000 people. If left untreated, it causes severe drowsiness, cripples the central nervous system - by which point it is almost always fatal. It kills 25,000 people each year.
"Sleeping sickness and nagana are undergoing a worrying period of re-emergence, having reportedly reached unprecedented levels of incidence against a background of limited effectiveness for available drugs and a general lack of intervention against the disease by affected countries," Rosebud Kurwijila, AU commissioner for rural economy and agriculture, said.
"We also observe that the programmes, which have been funded for many decades by different member states and donors, have at best shown positive effects for only a limited time, but failed to achieve sustainable control of tsetse-transmitted diseases," Kurwijila added.
SIT works by blasting male flies with rays from radioactive material. The fly is unharmed, but the radiation makes it genetically sterile and unable to reproduce. Once a female fly has mated, she assumes she is fertile and will not mate again for the rest of her lifespan. As a result, the population of flies can potentially fall dramatically.
During the 1990s, eight million sterile males were released in Zanzibar and in 1997 the Indian Ocean archipelago was declared tsetse-free. Similar projects eradicated screwworm in the United States, Mexico, Central America and Libya.
Still, critics argue that the SIT programme is too expensive and say other techniques like aerial spraying and traps are effective. Currently SIT is being implemented in isolated areas, such as Botswana, the South Rift Valley in Ethiopia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
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