The use of geographical information systems (GIS) in the management of Afri
can animal trypanosomosis in sub-Saharan Africa offers potential in assisti
ng decisions on allocation of resources, prioritization of control areas, a
nd planning and management of field operations. Here, Guy Hendrickx and col
leagues review approaches being used to develop reliable data-layers and to
incorporate these data into GIS models. They argue that techniques should
be further refined to produce more-detailed data layers and to include a dy
namic element, a problem rarely addressed until now.