Scientists have cracked the genetic code for the bloodsucking tsetse fly, whose bite affects 3 million livestock a year, and left untreated, can be fatal in humans. There is no vaccine for sleeping sickness caused by the tsetse fly, but the breakthrough brings hope for future efforts to control one of the most devastating livestock diseases in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a report in in GlobalDispatch. The tsetse genome was sequenced during a 10-year international collaborative effort of the Insect Pest Control Laboratory run jointly by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. Scientists will be able to better study the fly’s genes and their functions, opening the door for research to control the insect, according to the report. Tsetse flies carry single-cell parasites that cause trypanosomiasis, or nagana, an often-fatal disease that comes at massive costs to food security and farmers’ livelihoods. The disease leads to a debilitating chronic condition that reduces fertility, weight gain, meat and milk production, and makes livestock too weak for plowing fields or transportation, which affects crop production. The parasite evades the immune systems of mammals. Control methods involve targeting tsetse flies through trapping, pesticide and sterile male release. “Decoding the tsetse fly’s DNA is a major scientific breakthrough that opens the way for more effective control of trypanosomiasis, which is good news for millions of herders and farmers in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Kostas Bourtzis of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, in a prepared statement. “Detection and treatment of trypanosomiasis is currently expensive, difficult and dangerous for the livestock as it often involves toxic drugs, but this new knowledge will accelerate research on tsetse control methods and help scientists develop new and complementary strategies to reduce the use of costly drugs and insecticides,” he said. The Joint FAO/IAEA Division is supporting 14 African countries in their efforts to control tsetse fly populations by the sterile insect technique. A form of insect birth control, the sterile insect technique involves releasing male flies sterilized by low doses of radiation into infested areas, where they mate with wild females. These do not produce offspring and, as a result, the technique can suppress and, if applied systematically on an area-wide basis, eventually eradicate wild flies. Tsetse flies were successfully eradicated from Zanzibar using the sterile insect technique and are being suppressed in parts of Southern Ethiopia. In January, Senegal reported progress in infested areas with the same method.