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Spotlight / 1998

Interview: Brian Hursey

"Trypanosomiasis is the only animal disease that completely determines where and how people grow food..."
FAO, IAEA, WHO and the OAU's Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources are collaborating in the first coordinated, international programme to combat trypanosomiasis, a parasitic disease that threatens both people and domestic animals across sub-Saharan Africa. The disease not only kills or severely limits the productivity of livestock but is limiting the development of mixed farming systems in potentially rich agricultural areas (see our Spotlight article Cost of trypanosomiasis). For this interview, conducted between FAO headquarters in Rome and Harare, Zimbabwe, Agriculture 21 and FAO's PAAT coordinator, Brian Hursey, downloaded free "chat" software from the Internet. After a fairly simple set-up procedure, we were able to talk - for the cost of a local telephone call - about trypanosomiasis, its vector the tsetse fly, and PAAT's prospects for controlling, if not eliminating, the disease in Africa.

*** PAAT enters the chat ***

*** AG21 enters the chat ***

<AG21> Brian, what's the purpose of the meeting there in Zimbabwe?

<PAAT> It's the first official meeting of the PAAT advisory group coordinators as an FAO statutory body. Apart from discussing technical issues in tsetse and tryps control, we're beginning to draw up a PAAT plan of action for the next six years

<AG21> You once said that the problem with trypanosomiasis is that it's not a 'glamour disease'. What did you mean?

<PAAT> Unlike some of the major epidemic diseases, trypanosomiasis is considered a part of life in rural Africa. It's like being born with a disability - it's accepted, it's tolerated, it's just there. People have learned to live with it. But we think it's THE biggest constraint on African agricultural development

<AG21> In what way?

<PAAT> Tryps is the only animal disease which, where it's severe, totally prohibits domestic livestock and completely determines where and how people farm and grow food. Where livestock can survive with it, we still have 3 million cattle deaths a year and 300,000 cases of human trypanosomiasis [sleeping sickness]

<AG21> You've been working on trypanosomiasis for most of your professional life. What was your first experience of the disease?

<PAAT> In 1964 I was recruited to the Kenya Government as an entomologist and my first job was to help treat a big sleeping sickness epidemic on the eastern shores of Lake Victoria. We eliminated tsetse fly from an area of about 600 square miles using pesticides

<AG21> So trypanosomiasis can be eradicated?

<PAAT> Most attempts to eliminate or control it have been fairly successful. When I was head of tsetse control in Zimbabwe in the 1980s we almost completely eliminated it using aerial and ground spraying of pesticides. And it hasn't come back

<AG21> So why is it still such a massive problem in Africa?

<PAAT> Because usually the donor investment made in tsetse control is time-limited. You can be successful in one area but once the campaign ends, the area is subject to re-invasion. The tsetse belts in Africa are so large that not one of them has been eliminated  [See map at right]

<AG21> Tsetse was recently eradicated from Zanzibar using the sterile insect technique [see our September 1998 news item, Fighting flies with flies]. Do you see SIT as the main tsetse control method in the future?

<PAAT> The problem is that tryps is caused by five different parasites that are carried by about 24 different species of tsetse that have different habitats and ecological preferences. Every approach has advantages and disadvantages. SIT is one approach, but spraying, drug treatment and human surveillance are also important tools

<AG21> How will the new PAAT programme make a difference in efforts to eliminate trypanosomiasis?

<PAAT> The basis of PAAT is recognition of the fact that no single agency, donor or government can hope to control or eliminate tsetse. PAAT is the first fully inter-agency programme on trypanosomiasis. PAAT will be looking at all aspects of trypanosomiasis - not only how it affects cattle, but its impacts on land use, economics and overall development. With PAAT now in place, African countries and donors now have a means of focusing resources on areas where tsetse control is a priority

<AG21> How important is the PAAT Information System you are developing?

<PAAT> We are developing PAAT-IS with the UK. It has several important components - a geographic information system that will help assess tsetse impact on land use, population and crops, a knowledge base with everything published on tryps over the past 10 years, and a resource inventory showing what programmes are underway and how effective they have been. It's the first time anything like it has been done

<AG21> When do you hope to have PAAT-IS on the Web?

<PAAT> By the end of this year

<AG21> Do you see a time when tsetse and trypanosomiasis will be eradicated from Africa?

<PAAT> No, not in my time. But PAAT is the beginning of what I see as a sustained effort to control tsetse, clear it from its natural habitat and allow farmers to develop a sustainable agricultural environment where tsetse can't re-establish itself. That's the key - giving African farmers a fair chance to do what they do best

  • See also Spotlight: Cost of trypanosomiasis
  • Visit the web pages of the PAAT Information System

Published November 1998
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