Tsetse Muse

A decision tool to support large-scale operations against tsetse

Tsetse Muse is designed to help planners develop cost-effective strategies for controlling tsetse. The programme allows the user to define a tsetse population and then view the impact of different control strategies. In Tsetse Muse, the user has a wide range of tools available for controlling tsetse, including:

• ground spraying with residual insecticides;
• aerial spraying with non-residual insecticides;
• insecticide-treated cattle;
• insecticide-treated targets;
• traps and;
• the sterile insect technique.

These techniques can be either used alone or in any combination specified by the user.

For instance, you may be thinking about suppressing a population with aerial spraying or insecticide-treated cattle, and then eliminating it by releasing sterile males. To prevent nieghbouring tsetse from invading the cleared area, you might use a barrier of insecticide-treated cattle or targets. Tsetse Muse can help you answer questions such as:

• Is it more cost-effective to use aerial spraying or insecticide-treated cattle to suppress the population?
• If insecticide-treated cattle are to be used to suppress a population prior to SIT, should the treatment of cattle cease when the SIT begins?
• How wide should the barrier be?
• How soon before the start of these operations should the barrier be erected?

What if...?
A large array of imput slots allow the user to vary all key assumptions to assist 'what-if' analyses. If the user isn't sure about certain values, then the programme can make suggestions based on published knowledge of tsetse biology.

Tsetse Muse provides a dynamic view of the tsetse population as the control operation progresses and at the conclusion of the operation, the programme produces a series of tables and graphs summarising changes in:

• the distribution, abundance and age structure of the tsetse population;
• disease risk and;
• the cost of the operational components.

Installing Tsetse Muse
If this is the first time that you have used Tsetse Muse then you need to install the programme on your computer. To do this save the installation file tsetse_muse.exe to your hard disk and then run it.

The programme has been written to operate on Microsoft Excel (version 2000, or later). Some aspects of Tsetse Muse will not operate successfully with early versions of Office XP. This problem can be avoided by running the Office XP Service Pack (SP3 or later). This is freely available from the Microsoft Corporation. SP3 (file version 5.0.2919.6304) is available here.

Starting Tsetse Muse
If you have already installed Tsetse Muse on your computer and you want to start using it, then you need to exit Internet Explorer and open Tsetse Muse using the Tsetse Muse Shortcut on your Desktop or Start Menu, or by opening the file begin.xls.

To run Tsetse Muse, the macro security level of Excel must not be set to 'high'. So, before opening begin.xls, please set the 'Macro security' in the 'Tools' menu to 'medium'.

To see an example of Tsetse Muse being used to compare the efficacy and cost of sterilizing and insecticidal techniques, see Vale & Torr (2005).

References
Vale, G.A. & Torr, S.J. (2005) User-friendly models of the costs and efficacy of tsetse control: application to sterilizing and insecticidal techniques. Medical and Veterinary Entomology 19, 293-305.