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. 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. Because usually the donor investment made in tsetse control is time-limited. 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.
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. 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. No, not in my time.