Tsetse fly puts Angola to sleep

2004-02-04 11:33

Luanda - Sleeping sickness is ravaging Angola, threatening a third of the population across 14 of the 18 provinces in the country, still struggling to rebuild after a 27-year civil war ended in April 2002.

"The situation in Angola is alarming," said Ndinga Dieyi Dituvanga, a doctor and an official with the Institute for the Prevention of Trypanosomiasis, the scientific name for the disease which affects both human beings and cattle.

In 2003, 96 Angolans died of sleeping sickness by official count while 3 115 new cases and 270 000 suspected cases were detected nationwide, Dituvanga told reporters.

The four southern provinces of Kunene, Huambo, Namibe and Huila are the only ones not affected so far.

However, it is virtually endemic in the seven northern provinces of Bengo, Kuanza north and Kwanza south, Luanda, Malange, Uige and Zaire.

The ICCT, the French acronym for the Institute, admitted that there were vast areas in the east of the war-ravaged country where it had been completely unable to intervene.

"Actually we are only able to monitor the north and have no idea what is happening in the east where the most virulent form of the disease is believed to exist," Dituvanga said.

Destroyed a million flies

Despite a crippling lack of funds, the ICCT said it had last year managed to destroy one million tsetse flies in the seven worst-hit provinces, including Luanda,

Dituvanga said sleeping sickness was for Angola a "social, economic and political" problem as it had hit provinces which are rich in mineral resources such as oil-bearing Zaire province and diamond-bearing Malange.

The ICCT has 21 diagnostic and treatment centres for sleeping sickness. They are run by nine doctors, five researchers, an entomologist, 148 nurses and 53 laboratory staff.

The institute also runs periodic campaigns to try to detect new cases and follow up with treatment, working in partnership with eight international non-governmental organisations.

The biggest treatment and research facility is located in Viana, close to Luanda and has 84 beds which are constantly occupied.

A report published by the African Union in February last year said sleeping sickness seriously threatened development across the continent, with more than half-a-million suffering from the disease, 80 percent of whom perish.

About 20 species of the tsetse fly are found across a third of the continent in 37 sub-Saharan countries.

Trypanosomiasis is also one of the most deadly parasite-borne animal diseases.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, trypanosomiasis kills three million head of livestock every year and sick animals become less productive.

Sleeping sickness threatens about 50 million cattle in Africa, according to a recent report by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation.

- AFP