Fly repellents reduce tsetse bites by more than 90%

The collars are being trialled just outside the Shimba Hills game reserve in Mombasa. Photograph: ICIPE

4 April 2013. A new tsetse repellent technology, developed through a partnership between ICIPE – and the EU, reduces tsetse bites by more than 90% and has the potential to considerable increase the standard of living of East-Africa pastoralists. 

 
The tsetse control innovation consists in repellent collars fitted on the neck of cattle. The collars have a dispenser containing odors of animals avoided by tsetse (like the waterbuck, a big antelope species that is common in tsetse-infested areas of Eastern Africa). 

These fly repellents reduce tsetse bites by more than 90%. The consequent reduction in animal infection can lead to an increase in the average cattle weight, a can determine up to a two-fold increase in the production of milk and the price with which animals are sold. 

 
The technique is especially suitable for pastoralists like the Maasai of eastern Africa, who move from one place to another, and do not gain much from using traps (located usually in the nearby of settlements).
The technology has been developed over the last twelve years, and is currently in the process of validation trials, process which will involve 300 pastoralists and more than 1,500 cattle over the next ten years. Several dispenser models have been developed and tested and ICIPE is working to find business partners in order to mass-produce the prototype repellent collars into commercial products.

15/01/2013 The Guardian How the stink of a waterbuck could prevent sleeping sickness

07/11/2012 Global times ICIPE's develops tsetse fly repellent collar for livestock farmers