The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna is looking to expand one of its less publicised activities - pest control. Nuclear technology may seem a rather radical method of fighting insects but it's been used for almost the last fifty years. The latest experiment -- to eradicate the tsetse fly from the island of Zanzibar -- has been declared a success and the IAEA believes the technique should be extended to other parts of the world. Jon Devitt reports from Vienna:

It conjures up images of using a nuclear warhead to kill a fly, but the technique is much more subtle. It was developed in the 1950s in the United States and involves using low doses of gamma radiation to sterilise insects, which are then released en masse into the wild.

A pilot project has been running for the last three years in Tanzania. The country now has the largest tsetse factory, producing 70,000 sterile males per week.

The project has concentrated on the island of Zanzibar, which has been flooded with the sterile insects, normally dropped over the island from an aircraft. The IAEA has declared the project a success and has already embarked on a more ambitious ten-year programme in the southern Rift Valley of Ethiopia.