Tsetse fly control monitoring project

A team from HOORC begins environmental monitoring of tsetse fly control next week. This year, with the pest eliminated from the Okavango Delta, the Botswana Ministry of Animal Health and Production will be spraying over a three month period in the Kwando/Linyanti area of northern Botswana and the Caprivi Strip in neighbouring Namibia. The HOORC researchers will be looking at the impacts of the spraying on people living in the affected area, and on terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates and fishes.

The Pan African Tsetse and Trypanosomosis Eradication Campaign (PATTEC) was launched at the 26th meeting of the International Scientific Council for Trypanosomiasis Research and Control (ICSTRC) in 2001. The Campaign is coordinated by the African Union and its InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Research and supported by the Food and Agriculture Programme of the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

You can find out about the history of tsetse control in the Okavango Delta through a collection of studies and reports in HOORC’s Library.