Tsetse Fly - Control

Control

Tsetse control has been undertaken to reduce the incidence of the diseases the flies transmit. Two alternative strategies have been used in the attempts to reduce this African trypanosomiasis. One tactic is primarily medical or veterinary, targeting the disease directly using monitoring, prophylaxis, treatment, and surveillance to reduce the number of organisms that carry the disease. The second strategy is generally entomological, and intends to disrupt the cycle of transmission by reducing the number of flies.

The idea of tsetse control implies a change in the relationship between people and these insects. Prior to the twentieth century, people in Africa had largely adapted to the presence of tsetse. Human settlement patterns and agricultural practices had adapted to the presence of the fly. For example, in Ethiopia draft powered farming was restricted to the highland areas where the flies were absent, whereas lowland areas where tsetse are present were more sparsely populated by people living a nomadic, less agriculturally intensive lifestyle. Tsetse control is a response to changing conditions. Tsetse control has been proposed as a way of reducing the incidence of the disease in the populations living in tsetse regions, of allowing the expansion of human settlement and agriculture into new areas, and of helping people previously relocated either in forced transfers or due to migration.

Tsetse control efforts have been undertaken throughout the African continent, but long-term, sustainable control has rarely been achieved. Tsetse control efforts invariably are tied to the complex problems of poverty, health, politics, and violence that have proved so disastrous for the African people.

The reduction of fly numbers has generally been attempted with two different aims, either total eradication from the area, or control to just reduce the numbers. Eradication has often been imagined, has repeatedly been attempted, and is still proposed—but many reasons suggest that control is a safer, cheaper, more realistic, and sustainable approach. Eradication refers to the successful killing of every tsetse, either in a region or, under more grandiose proposals, from the entire African continent. Local eradication efforts have repeatedly been undertaken and have achieved temporary success, only to fail in the long term because tsetse re-invaded (as in Zanzibar).

All of the economic, ecological, political, and environmental justifications for eradication have been called into question. The economic justification for eradication offsets the immense costs of the eradication campaign against the medical and veterinary benefits that accrue in perpetuity.

However, eradication campaigns may have unintended social consequences, as a successful campaign may open up lands for agriculture previously populated by nomadic hunters, which displaces the original population.