Achievable breakthrough: Viewpoint on the challenge of creating tsetse-free zones in Sub-Saharan Africa

The tsetse fly transmits trypanosomes that sicken and kill both animals and man. It is one of the major roots of poverty in countries south of the Sahara, an ecological factor that exists nowhere else in the world. The SIT is the most environment friendly pest control method. It involves mass production and systematic aerial releases of radiation-sterilized but behaviourally competent male insects, who seek out females in the wild for mating. These unproductive matings interfere with reproduction of the target population, which declines to the point where it is no longer self-sustaining, leading to eradication