Tsetse fly

Classification

The tsetse fly belongs to the kind Glossina , which is the only one of the family of the Glossinidae . It is about a generic term which gathers species of the Glossina kind such as Glossina pallidipes , Glossina brevipalpis or Glossina austeni .

The name of the kind is allotted to the German entomologist Christian Rudolph Wilhelm Wiedemann (1770-1840) which named the species-type in 1830.

Trypanosome

It is by the puncture of the tsetse fly which the trypanosome can be transmitted which can cause at the Homme the Maladie of the sleep, which causes, in Africa, the death of: 400000 people per annum. No Vaccin exists to date (March 2007).

This parasite also touches making the cattle, it feeble and increasingly unsuitable with the agricultural use. That causes a loss of 4 billion dollars for the African continent according to the United Nations for the food and agriculture (FAO). The program of eradication, carried out of co-operation between FAO and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) initially consisted in reducing drastiquement the population of tsetse flies using insecticide, to make it possible the technique of the sterile insect to be effective, it is only after, that the sterile male flies were slackened. A ratio of 50 per 1 was used on Zanzibar, so as to make sure of the success of the operation.

Since the success of Zanzibar, FAO wishes to extend the use of this technique to other African countries.

The opponents with this project support that the total removal of this species is likely to unbalance the ecosystem, in which the tsetse fly undoubtedly has its place. An important programme of eradication of the tsetse fly was already applied in the years 1970-1980 in the area of Ngaoundéré. A continuity of this program to the beginning of the year 1990 consisted in using insect traps in order to constitute a natural stopping with the expansion of the insect in the zone considered as éradiquée. This initiative will have allowed a starter of the development of the dairy production involving with it a deceleration of transhumances of the cattle and a beginning of the fodder culture on the plate of the Adamaoua.

History

The Entomologiste Ernest Edward Austen (1867 - 1936) belonged to the large specialists in the tsetse fly.

References

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