By BRIAN HATYOKA –
ZAMBIA has this year invested US$ 4 million the eradication of tsetse flies and trypanosomiasis to safeguard livestock and human beings, Agriculture and Livestock Deputy Minister Lackson Kazabu has said.
Mr Kazabu said the country had since sprayed an area measuring 6, 300 square kilometres in Western Province to fight the disease.
He said Zambia had done well in contributing to the control and eradication of tsetse flies and trypanosomiasis in the last past five years.
Mr Kazabu was speaking in Livingstone at Chrismar Hotel on Thursday during a regional consultative workshop on strategies, recent technical advances and mechanisms for creating effective partnerships
in the management of tsetse flies and trypanosomiasis.
He said trypanosomiasis was a vector-born disease and therefore there was need to focus on the control of the tsetse flies which was the vector that carried the parasite.
“We are all aware that tsetse and trypanosomiasis is one of the major constraints to livestock production, agriculture production and rural development in general.
“Apart from the negative impact of the disease on livestock production, agriculture and rural development, it also affects human beings,” Mr Kazabu said.
