Ten million tsetse flies to fight sleeping sickness
Nov 21, 2005
SCIENTISTS at Livestock Research Institute (LIRI) in Tororo district are to breed 10 million sterilised tsetse flies to help fight wild tsetse flies that transmit nagana to cattle and sleeping sickness.
By Ronald Kalyango SCIENTISTS at Livestock Research Institute (LIRI) in Tororo district are to breed 10 million sterilised tsetse flies to help fight wild tsetse flies that transmit nagana to cattle and sleeping sickness.
“We have so far bred 250,000 tsetse flies though the whole programme aims at breeding 10 million that will be released in the fields,†said Moses Kibuka, the laboratory assistant LIRI insectary.
Under this programme, the sterilised male tsetse are released in the fields, but when they mate with the existing female tsetse flies, no eggs are produced, thus eventually reducing on their numbers.
He said past tsetse flies control methods included killing game animals to deny tsetse flies source of food, destruction and burning of bushes to destroying tsetse habitats and spraying of tsetse habitants with insecticides killing tsetse flies directly.
However, Kibuka says the above methods are no longer acceptable because they degrade our tourist attraction and are environmentally unfriendly. Currently, traps and targets impregnated with residual insecticides and spraying insecticides on livestock to act as live baits are the preferred tsetse control methods. Usually, a combination of these methods is used to achieve the best result.
The locally made traps look like mosquito nets. They are blue, white and black and attract the flies from a distance. Once trapped inside, they suck poison strategically placed and they die off. The trap is used for three months before it is disposed off, but it can last up to five years if well handled.
“Though the traps are currently being encouraged to be used by farmers, we realised that they are not lasting solutions for the problem at stake that is why we embarked on the breeding of the sterilised tsetse flies to be released in the fields soon,†Kibuka explained. Tsetse flies are vectors responsible for the transmitting parasites that cause a disease known as Nagana (Trypanosom-osis) in Livestock and sleeping sickness in human beings.
There are 10 species of tsetse flies in Uganda mainly found in the districts of Bugiri, Mukono, Jinja, Kamuli, Iganga, Busia, Tororo, Pallisa, Mbale, Kumi and Soroti. The flies are also found in Kabarole, parts of Mbarara and Hoima and Soroti and in West Nile.
Glossina fuscipes is the most common specie in Uganda. Tsetse flies also transmit Nagana to pigs, sheep and goats. The disease reduces productivity of livestock through stunted growth, loss of weight, low milk yield, reduced fertility, abortion, loss of draught and death.
Towards the 19th century, over 25,000 people died in South Eastern Uganda. Since then, periodic epidemics of the disease have occurred in both south eastern and north western Uganda with devastating effects.
By June 2003, 38 deaths had been documented from the current sleeping sickness epidemic in Serere Soroti district, which started in 1999.
Dr. Lewis Okedi, the head of entomology section, said ticks are yet another ecto-parasite that feed on blood of livestock and in the process transmit diseases. Unlike tsetse flies that feed for a short time and go, ticks attach for days until they finish feeding.
There are four common ticks that are found on cattle –– brown ear tick which is found in ears and around the head and the bont tick (coloured tick) found on the udder/socrotum; the red-legged tick which is found under the tail and the blue tick which usually attaches on the belly and back of the animal.
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“We have so far bred 250,000 tsetse flies though the whole programme aims at breeding 10 million that will be released in the fields,†said Moses Kibuka, the laboratory assistant LIRI insectary.
Under this programme, the sterilised male tsetse are released in the fields, but when they mate with the existing female tsetse flies, no eggs are produced, thus eventually reducing on their numbers.
He said past tsetse flies control methods included killing game animals to deny tsetse flies source of food, destruction and burning of bushes to destroying tsetse habitats and spraying of tsetse habitants with insecticides killing tsetse flies directly.
However, Kibuka says the above methods are no longer acceptable because they degrade our tourist attraction and are environmentally unfriendly. Currently, traps and targets impregnated with residual insecticides and spraying insecticides on livestock to act as live baits are the preferred tsetse control methods. Usually, a combination of these methods is used to achieve the best result.
The locally made traps look like mosquito nets. They are blue, white and black and attract the flies from a distance. Once trapped inside, they suck poison strategically placed and they die off. The trap is used for three months before it is disposed off, but it can last up to five years if well handled.
“Though the traps are currently being encouraged to be used by farmers, we realised that they are not lasting solutions for the problem at stake that is why we embarked on the breeding of the sterilised tsetse flies to be released in the fields soon,†Kibuka explained. Tsetse flies are vectors responsible for the transmitting parasites that cause a disease known as Nagana (Trypanosom-osis) in Livestock and sleeping sickness in human beings.
There are 10 species of tsetse flies in Uganda mainly found in the districts of Bugiri, Mukono, Jinja, Kamuli, Iganga, Busia, Tororo, Pallisa, Mbale, Kumi and Soroti. The flies are also found in Kabarole, parts of Mbarara and Hoima and Soroti and in West Nile.
Glossina fuscipes is the most common specie in Uganda. Tsetse flies also transmit Nagana to pigs, sheep and goats. The disease reduces productivity of livestock through stunted growth, loss of weight, low milk yield, reduced fertility, abortion, loss of draught and death.
Towards the 19th century, over 25,000 people died in South Eastern Uganda. Since then, periodic epidemics of the disease have occurred in both south eastern and north western Uganda with devastating effects.
By June 2003, 38 deaths had been documented from the current sleeping sickness epidemic in Serere Soroti district, which started in 1999.
Dr. Lewis Okedi, the head of entomology section, said ticks are yet another ecto-parasite that feed on blood of livestock and in the process transmit diseases. Unlike tsetse flies that feed for a short time and go, ticks attach for days until they finish feeding.
There are four common ticks that are found on cattle –– brown ear tick which is found in ears and around the head and the bont tick (coloured tick) found on the udder/socrotum; the red-legged tick which is found under the tail and the blue tick which usually attaches on the belly and back of the animal.
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