Luanda, 05/03 - About four million Angolans living in zones under tsetse fly pressure are facing serious health risk, with trypanosomiasis also threatening food security, social and economic progress of the populations.
This was said Thursday in Luanda by veterinarian Kussonga Jord=E3o, while addressing the session of the second day of the ongoing Angolan Congress of Veterinary Medicine.
According to the physician, men that continue being the country's moving force and the animals the source of proteins, are the most hardly hit by the disease.
Kussoma Jord=E3o said that with the advent of peace, the country needs to adopt a policy of combat of the tsetse fly and animal trypanosomiasis as their control represents a chance for the populations to get supplied with animal proteins.
He added that the eradication of the disease will improve the chances for the introduction of livestock species into the production zones.
He said that 35 percent of the national territory is affected by the disease, except a few zones of the central highlands, southern coast, the southern part of the Coporolo river and the country's southwest that includes the provinces of Cunene, Huambo, Huila and Namibe.
The source mentioned that data from the Trypanosomiasis Control and Combat Institute indicate that the disease is alarming as the number of new cases of the sleeping sickness rises everyday.
Animal trypanosomiasis is a disease caused by the sting of the tsetse fly.