Organisations call for enhanced tsetse control

Four international organisations have called for a more integrated approach to control the tsetse fly, which transmits sleeping sickness to human beings and causes Nagana in livestock. These diseases, found in 37 sub-Saharan countries, threaten 50 million people and 48 million head of cattle. The organisations are the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization of African Unity and the World Health Organization (WHO). "An estimated 500,000 people, the majority of whom may die due to lack of treatment, are infected with sleeping sickness," they said in a joint report on Thursday. "Nagana has a severe impact on African agriculture with annual losses in cattle production valued at US $1.2 billion." Half the population in tsetse-infested areas of sub-Saharan Africa, the report added, suffered from food insecurity. Some 85 percent of the people lived in rural areas, where 80 percent of the population depend on agricultural production for their livelihood. The report was produced at a Rome workshop intended to harmonize activities relating to the Program Against African Trypanosomiasis (PAAT) and the Pan-African Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Campaigns (PATTEC). Specific tsetse and trypanosomiasis projects in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Mali were discussed. Sleeping sickness is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa where tsetse flies live. Three severe epidemics occurred in Africa over the last century. The first, in 1896-1906, occurred mostly in Uganda and the Congo Basin. The second, in 1920, affected several African countries, while the third began in 1970 and is still in progress. Symptoms include bouts of fever, headaches, pains in the joints and itching. Later the parasite crosses the blood-brain barrier and infects the central nervous system, leading to confusion, sensory disturbances and poor coordination. It disturbs the sleep cycle, hence the name "sleeping sickness" and without treatment it is fatal, according to WHO.