Twenty-five years of blackfly control in a localized moist forest area of Cameroon: a review

The high number of blackfly bites in a moist forest area of Cameroon, around the Sanaga river, was causing considerable nuisance and had led to a local ground-based larval control campaign. We have reviewed the 25 years of almost uninterrupted weekly larvicide applications in this area and emphasized the problems related to application difficulties, environmental pollution and blackfly resistance to the insecticides. Although the number of larvicidal compounds readily available is now limited, the future of blackfly control at this site does not seem to pose real technical difficulties because of its economic importance (hydroelectric dam) and the progress made in the fields of resistance management, search for new insecticide molecules and development of new control methods.