UN agencies join OAU to fight diseases spread through tsetse flies

Three United Nations agencies today announced plans to team with the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in the fight against diseases spread through tsetse flies, which cause sleeping sickness in humans and Nagana in livestock.

The proposed strategy brings together the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in an effort which the agencies said would incorporate new technologies while protecting the environment. The "area-wide integrated pest management" approach will involve active tsetse control strategies, including the use of sterile flies to ultimately eliminate the tsetse population and the diseases they carry.

Tsetse-transmitted trypanosomiasis, a disease unique to Africa, threatens 50 million people and 48 million cattle. According a joint report released today by the four partners, an estimated 500,000 people are already infected with sleeping sickness, and because most of them lack treatment they face the risk of death.

Nagana, or African Animal Trypanosomiasis, has a severe impact on the continent's agriculture with annual losses in cattle production alone valued at as much as $1.2 billion, according to the agencies.

In tsetse-infested areas, half the population suffers from food insecurity, according to the report. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 85 per cent of the poor are located in rural areas and most of those people depend on agricultural production to survive.