Lawra District Research Articles

K. R. S. Morris and Tsetse Eradication in the Gold Coast, 1928–51

AbstractThis article investigates the anti-tsetse fly work of colonial entomologist K. R. S. Morris in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast between 1928 and 1951. Morris's main programme was directed at the Lawra District of the north-west, where he claimed to have eliminated the tsetse population and trypanosomiasis by the end of his tenure. This achievement allowed farmers to move into the formerly infested land and reclaim the area for agricultural development. As an added benefit, Morris also claimed, eliminating tsetse flies in the Lawra District reduced the incidence of sleeping sickness in the main market towns of north-west Ashanti. The article charts Morris's work, which is historically significant for a number of reasons. First, it reveals much about the connection between anti-tsetse work and colonial development doctrine in northern Ghana. Second, it highlights the importance of studying colonial practices. Morris's clearing programme appears to have worked, but it was almost certainly based on faulty theories of tsetse ecology. In this sense, the story of anti-tsetse work in the Northern Territories shows that we might learn as much from colonial practices as from colonial ideologies.

Decentralization, the State and Conflicts over Local Boundaries in Northern Ghana

Decentralization projects, such as that initiated by the Rawlings government in Ghana at the end of the 1980s, create a political space in which the relations between local political communities and the state are re-negotiated. In many cases, the devolution of power intensifies special-interest politics and political mobilization aiming at securing a ‘larger share of the national cake’, that is, more state funds, infrastructure and posts for the locality. To legitimate their claims vis-a-vis the state, civic associations (‘hometown’ unions), traditional rulers and other non-state institutions often invoke some form of ‘natural’ solidarity, and decentralization projects thus become arenas of debate over the boundaries of community and the relationship between ‘local’ and national citizenship. This article analyses one such debate, in the former Lawra District of Ghana's Upper West Region, where the creation of new districts provoked protracted discussions, among the local political elite as well as the peasants and labour migrants, about the connections between land ownership and political authority, the relations between the local ethnic groups (Dagara and Sisala), and the relevance of ethnic versus territorial criteria in defining local citizenship.

K. R. S. Morris and Tsetse Eradication in the Gold Coast, 1928-51

This article investigates the anti-tsetse fly work of colonial entomologist K. R. S. Morris in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast between 1928 and 1951. Morris's main programme was directed at the Lawra District of the north-west, where he claimed to have eliminated the tsetse population and trypanosomiasis by the end of his tenure. This achievement allowed farmers to move into the formerly infested land and reclaim the area for agricultural development. As an added benefit, Morris also claimed, eliminating tsetse flies in the Lawra District reduced the incidence of sleeping sickness in the main market towns of north-west Ashanti. The article charts Morris's work, which is historically significant for a number of reasons. First, it reveals much about the connection between anti-tsetse work and colonial development doctrine in northern Ghana. Second, it highlights the importance of studying colonial practices. Morris's clearing programme appears to have worked, but it was almost certainly based on faulty theories of tsetse ecology. In this sense, the story of anti-tsetse work in the Northern Territories shows that we might learn as much from colonial practices as from colonial ideologies.

Distributing insecticide-treated bednets during measles vaccination: a low-cost means of achieving high and equitable coverage.

To achieve high and equitable coverage of insecticide-treated bednets by integrating their distribution into a measles vaccination campaign. In December 2002 in the Lawra district in Ghana, a measles vaccination campaign lasting 1 week targeted all children aged 9 months-15 years. Families with one or more children less than five years old were targeted to receive a free insecticide-treated bednet. The Ghana Health Service, with support from the Ghana Red Cross and UNICEF, provided logistical support, volunteer workers and social mobilization during the campaign. Volunteers visited homes to inform caregivers about the campaign and encourage them to participate. We assessed pre-campaign coverage of bednets by interviewing caregivers leaving vaccination and distribution sites. Five months after distribution, a two-stage cluster survey using population-proportional sampling assessed bednet coverage, retention and use. Both the pre-campaign and post-campaign survey assessed household wealth using an asset inventory. At the campaign exit interview 636/776 (82.0%) caregivers reported that they had received a home visit by a Red Cross volunteer before the campaign and that 32/776 (4.1%) of the youngest children in each household who were less than 5 years of age slept under an insecticide-treated bednet. Five months after distribution caregivers reported that 204/219 (93.2%) of children aged 9 months to 5 years had been vaccinated during the campaign; 234/248 (94.4%) of households were observed to have an insecticide-treated bednet; and 170/249 (68.3%) were observed to have a net hung over a bed. Altogether 222/248 (89.5%) caregivers reported receiving at least one insecticide-treated bednet during the campaign, and 153/254 (60.2%) said that on the previous night their youngest child had slept under a bednet received during the campaign. For households in the poorest quintile, post-campaign coverage of insecticide-treated bednets was 10 times higher than pre-campaign coverage of households in the wealthiest quintile (46/51 (90.2%) versus 14/156 (9.0%)). The marginal operational cost was 0.32 US dollars per insecticide-treated bednet delivered. These findings suggest that linking bednet distribution to measles vaccination campaigns may provide an important opportunity for achieving high and equitable coverage of bednets.

Planning the control of sleeping sickness

Attendances at well established treatment centres give a reliable index of the incidence of sleeping sickness within the area served, and have been used for planning control experiments in an epidemic in the Lawra and Wa districts in the north-west corner of the Gold Coast and for studying the effects of the measures employed. Glossina palpalis and G. tachinoides are the main vectors of the T. gambiense form of sleeping sickness present and also of animal trypanosomiasis. G. morsitans occurs only in thinly populated regions and is chiefly concerned with cattle trypanosomiasis. Sleeping sickness, present along the Black Volta river prior to the beginning of the century, had by 1938 developed into a serious pandemic covering over 30,000 square miles of the Upper Volta territory. Depopulation followed in the most heavily infected localities and, by concentrating the population on the uplands between infected river valleys, was giving rise to serious secondary evils arising from water shortage and soil erosion. The extension of G. morsitans into depopulated areas was also taking place. A striking feature of the distribution of the disease in Lawra district in 1938 was the relatively small amount of infection along the Black Volta, where fly-belt is heavy and continuous, and the concentration of infection on the tributaries and especially their headwaters, where fly-belt is lighter and less continuous or even reduced to isolated groves. Inferences from this distribution led to planning a concentration of attack, by tsetse eradication, on the main epidemic area (the Volta tributaries) while the Volta fly-belt was to be left untouched. Eradication of G. palpalis and G. tachinoides was effected by selective clearing, a method involving the removal over each complete river system of only certain species of trees and shrubs which are essential constituents of the dry-season habitat of these tsetse. Between 1940 and 1945 1,100 square miles of Lawra district were freed from fly at a total cost of £4,500. A population of 90,000 is affected. The permanent tsetse communities disappeared on each stretch of river as soon as clearing was completed. The high degree of control obtained has been shown by continuous observation on three of the cleared rivers, where 0 to 9 flies have been caught per year in places where the pre-clearing catches were 2,000 to 7,500 flies per year. The catch at a control point on the uncleared Volta was 20,127 flies in 1947. An intrusion of G. morsitans was brought under complete control by game reduction backed by settlement. In the area of tsetse eradication a 97 per cent. reduction in the incidence of sleeping sickness took place between 1938 and 1947. In Wa district systems of protective clearing were applied over two blocks of country and effected reductions of 80 and 50 per cent. of pre-clearing incidence of trypanosomiasis, the reduction being proportionate to the number and length of clearings. In south-west Wa, where no control measures had been applied, an increase of over 100 per cent. in the number of cases was observed between 1940 and 1947. Tsetse eradication is considered essential for the complete control of epidemic sleeping sickness and has the added advantage of controlling animal trypanosomiasis. A modification of selective clearing leading to the eradication of the fly-belt vegetation has been applied throughout the Lawra area of reclamation and has given such a degree of stability that maintenance can be taken over by the local natives even at such low population densities as 20 per square mile. This is important because sleeping sickness does not appear as a serious problem below this density. Full advantage of the reclamation of the river valleys is being taken by the people, about 1,500 having settled voluntarily along the Kamba and over 4,000 acres of new farms having been broken since clearing was finished. Conclusions on the epidemiology of sleeping sickness show that a very exacting combination of factors, bringing the tsetse into close and continuous contact with man, is required for epidemics to arise. Without the full set of factors the disease is absent or present at low infection rates only. The factors are analysed and discussed. The discussion leads to the conclusion that the most rapid and complete control of sleeping sickness can be obtained by concentrating attack on the true epidemic centres which lie commonly on tributaries of the main Volta rivers. Eradication of the tsetse and fly-belt vegetation throughout these natural land units, followed by their fuller development, affords a permanent solution to both human and animal trypanosomiasis and can, at the same time, be of economic benefit to the community as a whole.