This week's article is about an interesting and maybe controversial eradication method of the tsetse fly in Ethiopia. The fly is only found in Africa and is a parasite that can affect both humans and livestock. It infects the parasite that directly attacks the nervous system, its called the sleeping sickness for humans. For cows it causes nagana, which can be compared to malaria. The method of eradication is the main point to all this as they are using radiation to stop the reproduction of the fly. they claim that if they can stop reproducing flies then the fly will essentially lose numbers. A tsetse female only reproduces once in its lifetime which is why they are using radiation to make the flies sterile them spread them amongst the fertile ones so there is no reproduction. The method is deemed safe by the International Atomic Energy agency as it has been tested in other regions like Zanzibar, and in south america with the fruit fly. I wonder what happens when the exposed flies die in a water source or food source??
http://www.voanews.com/content/ethiopias-using-radiation-to-eradicate-tsetse-flies/1545361.html
This sounds kind of dangerous. It makes me feel like some kind of genetically mutated fly is going to come back to haunt us like in some early horror movie. I wonder how much research has actually been done on this kind of method to remove the tsetse fly. Hopefully this doesn't come back to haunt us.
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