On-Station Cattle Insecticide Treatment against Tsetse Flies using a Footbath

Abstract

The study of arthropod vector behavior can lead to inexpensive and innovative control techniques for farmers. For instance, treating cattle feet with an insecticide footbath eliminates Amblyomma variegatum (Acari: Ixodidae) ticks captured in the pasture, before they can reach their predilection sites. The authors recently showed that treating cattle with a formulation of α-cypermethrin in a footbath was as efficient as full spraying to control Glossina tachinoides Westwood, 1850 (Diptera, Glossinidae) and G. palpalis gambiensis Vanderplank 1949. Here, the authors compared the knock-down efficacy of a deltamethrin formulation (Vectocid) applied as full or partial spray, or in a footbath, against these two species and G. morsitans submorsitans Newstead 1910, in experimental conditions (exposure to tsetse flies in cage, and in the stable under mosquito netting). When exposing cattle to flies in cages, the knock-down effect was similar (p = 0.062) for the footbath and the partial spraying, but lower than with full spraying (p < 10⁻³). In-stable, the footbath treatment was less efficacious than that of the other two techniques (p < 10⁻³). Nonetheless, fly mortality obtained by footbath was higher than that needed to eliminate an isolated tsetse population (> 3% day⁻¹), when assessed over 15 days using a three-day treatment frequency. The footbath treatment may thus prevent tsetse-transmitted cattle trypanosomose infection under some conditions.