Experiences in management of area-wide control of Glossina palpalis palpalis (Diptera: Glossinidae) in Ghana using bait technology and releases of sterile males

Ghana is infested with ten species of morsitans, palpalis and fusca groups of tsetse fly in approximately 37% of the country including areas where mixed farming is practiced, hence making animal trypanosomiasis a major constraint to rural agricultural production and other socioeconomic development. There have been many tsetse and trypanosomiasis control schemes implemented since the 1920s using a variety of methods. In the control of animal trypanosomiasis, the country has relied mainly on chemotherapy and chemoprophylaxis regimes using homidium chloride (Novidium), diaminazene aceturate (Berenil) and isometamidium chloride (Samorin) in cattle, goats and sheep, keeping of trypanotolerant cattle and game elimination. Methods for tsetse control include discriminate bush clearance, settlements and land use, insecticidal dips, ground spraying of tsetse habitats with insecticides, use of traps of various designs, insecticide-impregnated biconical traps, screens and targets and pour-ons. Despite successes in the various control programmes, the magnitude of the tsetse and trypanosomiasis problem is increasing due to the advance of tsetse flies into previously uninfested areas and development of drug resistance by trypanosome parasites to different types of trypanocidal drugs in use in Ghana. Sustainable tsetse and trypanosomiasis control require the use of appropriate strategies which take into account the environmental and socioeconomic considerations to facilitate adequate community participation. In the 1983 Ghana entered into a Technical Assistance Cooperation Programme with IAEA to provide technical support for the control of riverine tsetse flies in critical cattle-rearing areas in the northern sector of the country