Entomology Unit
Tsetse flies
Development of improved blood diet processing and components
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Both male and female tsetse feed exclusively on vertebrate blood. Feeding large colonies on live animals is both impractical and unethical, so the blood to feed tsetse colonies is collected from cows at slaughter in the abattoir and the flies are fed through a silicone membrane. |
| As the abattoir is not a sterile environment, the blood inevitably suffers a degree of bacterial contamination. Routinely this is reduced by a 1kGy dose of gamma radiation, but large gamma irradiators are not readily available in the countries in Africa where the tsetse needs to be reared. We are therefore working on a number of alternative decontamination procedures, including pasteurization, chemical treatment and UV irradiation. |  |
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